1st House

Purpose: I am … | Do

Quick Facts

About 1st House

Have you ever been asked to describe yourself (i.e., who am I)? The 1st House is the house of the self and identity in its basic form, and the foundation for answering this type of question.

The 1st House is the beginning of the human experience and 1 of the 4 Houses that initiate and develop our personalities. The 1st House is the immediate impulses of the personality that will develop into a concrete and dependable personality. The 1st House is also the place where our awareness of our Ascendent begins to take shape because this House is known as the “gate to the inner life.”

The reason that the 1st House is known as the “gate to the inner life,” is because it is the beginning of the human experience, the time when we are getting to know how we feel about ourselves and what we feel inside. We push boundaries and limits to understand ourselves better and to understand how we impact others. It is the House of awareness and vision and it is the time when we seek to find our potential and truth within our own beings.

The 1st House of the is the house that deals with the conscious self and the development of our basic identities. It creates the spark between how we feel, what we think about, and how we act/react to the world around us. This house is part of our consciousness, and comes to be after ascending from the darkness of the womb into the lightness of being.

At any time in our lives that a new beginning is afoot, the 1st house embodies the qualities we possess to handle new beginnings and the excitement and challenges a new beginning is sure to bring. It is the place where birth occurred and the planetary pattern was captured within us for future use.

We inherit looks, abilities/talents, a temperament, characteristics, and a personality as we make our way into the 1st of the 12 houses of the Zodiac. This house provides us with the context by which we learn to embrace change and new beginning, and who we instinctively know ourselves to be before we are molded by our environments, relationships, beliefs, and educations. Furthermore, the 1st house encompasses how others see us and how we show up.

1st House Signs

Below is a list of planets with generic descriptions that may be positioned in your 1st House. If you would like to learn more about how your 1st house planets relate to all the other signs and planetary positions in your chart, a birth chart reading will offer an incredible wealth of personalized information.

The Sun is the planet of vitality and individuality. When the Sun is in your 1st House, your will and sense of self are powerful and strong. You like attention, but you are also independent and boast incredible leadership abilities. You are likely to be self-governed, generous, confident, composed, authoritative, and, at times, egotistical.

The Sun gives you a strong sense of self and you identify with who you are within. You tend to make a strong impression on others, yet inside, you are a bit self-conscious, but it doesn’t stop you from exuding confidence. You don’t worry much about what others think of you, and despite your temperament, you definitely have an effect on others. When you can reel in your tendency to be overbearing and authoritative, you belong in a leadership or innovative role. You are resourceful and you make a mark with a natural ability to lead.

Having the Sun in your 1st House represents a strength of purpose and inner vitality. You will have the power to stand out in your uniqueness as an individual, choosing to live your life with a deep and intense awareness. Be aware of your personal feelings, tastes and opinions and how they may influence your decisions. It is important to be concerned with your inner life, but try to be mindful of your outer life as well.

The Moon is the planet of emotions and instincts. When you have the Moon in your 1st House, you are full of imagination and creativity both in how you express yourself and how you use your intuition with others.  Wherever you call home, and those who you consider family, are of the utmost importance to you. You look back on your childhood fondly and appreciate the nostalgia it brings. You long to be admired and appreciated, and in many ways, you long to be famous one day. You are receptive, curious and full of romance, but you have a tendency to be oversensitive, moody, and may be prone to moments when you drain the energy of yourself and others.

Having the Moon in your 1st House emphasizes the imaginative side and the sensitivity in approaching problems in your inner world. This can make you more maternal (motherly) and shape your inner world in a maternal direction. You may find yourself seeking experiences of a spiritual nature that make use of your active imagination.

Mercury is the planet that encompasses the mind and thoughts. When you have Mercury in your 1st House, your mind is alert, full of questions and entertaining. You seek and long to find an intellectual challenge to anchor your mind. Traveling and conversing with others are two things you really enjoy. It is likely that you are the person who has all the ideas. You are adaptable, active, and a great writer and speaker, but you are prone to being restless, self-centered and may have trouble making a decision.

Mercury brings an intellectual and mental inner world to you. You seek to understand the reasons why things have happened before you accept the facts. You may find that when you become aware of events, situations or conditions, you are analyzing and interpreting the events within your mind. Your mind is curious and you boast higher mental capabilities than the average person, making you unique in your thought processes. You likely search for your foundational self with aggressive and ruthless power.

Mars is the planet of energy, enthusiasm and assertiveness. When you have Mars in your 1st House, you are independent, impulsive, and don’t care for taking advice or direction from others. On the onset of a new project or task, you bring energy and confidence, pushing forward with hard work and effort. You are passionate and have an unyielding sexual drive that longs for lovemaking rather than a one night stand. You have a strong body, a blunt and assertive nature, and you are courageous, but you have a tendency to be inconsiderate of others, pushy, domineering and prone to accidents.

Mars pushes you to go beyond the physical appearance and fight your way to your own inner truth and center. You will devote a forceful determination to getting to know yourself and what is true for you at the expense of anything that contradicts your experience. Your impulsive and independent side works in your favor to find your inner self and claim the victory of becoming who you were always meant to be inside.

Venus is the planet of love and pleasure. When you have Venus in your 1st House, you are likely affectionate, attractive, and flirty. You are charming in social situations and enjoy socializing. You take pride in your appearance and are not afraid to spend money on yourself and your appearance. You are sympathetic, creative and artistic, and boast a charming personality, but you are prone to being lazy, self-centered, and materialistic.

Venus makes you seek meaning and value in the human experience. This is important to you, as is finding value in emotional, social or appearance. Despite this quest for meaning and value, you are endowed with charm and productive abilities. Use them to build and shape your life into whatever you want it to be.

Jupiter is the planet of expansion, philosophy, and luck When you have Jupiter in your 1st House, you have a charming disposition, and engaging social success. Your most notable quality is your ability to inspire confidence and optimism in others as well as in yourself. You give freely of your time and energy, making your social capital rather wealthy. When faced with situations that require a lot of luck, you are often lucky, and it is likely that most things turn out for the best in your life. You are cheerful, liberally minded, kind, and expansive, though you are a tendency to be self-indulgent, easily swayed, have a likelihood of gaining weight easily, and struggle at times to have faith in love.

Jupiter is about social factors and religion, making your human experience one of social interest and religious fulfillment. You may seek to understand yourself through organized religion, rituals, and/or social groups, and you may build new human organizations to expand the experience. Participating in groups or clubs or gatherings is a fundamental reason for your existence and builds the foundations of your inner life. You embrace teachers and professionals for mentorship and education with a level of devotion that brings you inner peace. Being alone in your inner world doesn’t serve your highest purpose.

Saturn is the planet of limitations and discipline. When you have Saturn in your 1st House, you are likely to be a persistent person who doesn’t give up easily. You have incredible organization skills and a capacity for higher than normal self-discipline. It is likely that you are timid and patient on the exterior, but underneath the surface, you might feel anxious.  You want your talents to be seen and known, and you put in the hard work to be sure you are recognized. You are industrious, enduring, and responsible, but you are prone to being stubborn, afraid of change and new beginnings, and you have a tendency to be secretive.

You may have spent your whole life feeling older than you are, as Saturn is the mature planet with a fatherly wisdom engrained in its energy. Searching for your inner stability and security can provoke stress, but it is often achieved under pressure or in the face of disappointments. You will search through the darkest parks of your mind to find yourself and the accomplishment will likely bring about a deep sense of pride. You are who you are, and you are uncompromising about who you are.

Uranus is the planet of originality, rebellion and change. When you have Uranus in your 1st House, you have a mind that is full of inventions. You likely have unusual hobbies and interests that make you fascinating to others. You may experience unexpected and very sudden new beginnings throughout your life. With a high-strung personality, you are an independent thinker who looks at things differently from the masses, and you are willful in getting your way. You are creative, intuitive, authentic, and original, but you can also be stubborn, eccentric, and insensitive at times.

Uranus often brings a restless and reforming energy that can leave you feeling relentlessly dissatisfied with your inner life. You may feel discontent with the way things are within and outside of you, causing you to feel like none of the experiences you endure are final. In your childhood, you likely had many upsetting experiences that left a mark within you, and you may feel compelled to avoid these unpleasant memories. In order to push forward, you may have to dive into the past and reframe the memories to serve you more positively.

Neptune is the planet of illusions and spirituality. When you have Neptune in your 1st House, you are full of imagination and you are likely to be influenced by your environment or others. This can be used to create art, music, poetry, and other forms of artistic genius. You have a tendency to be absentminded but it is mostly because you engage in frequent daydreaming. You can be lazy at times, but your enjoy luxury when you are exposed to it. The sea is a place you love to go, whether being near it or putting your toes in the water. You are a person who have many visionary ideas, and you are idealist,  and sensitive to others, but you have the capacity to procrastinate, change things up too often, be swayed easily and feel little satisfaction at times.

Neptune pushes you toward humanitarian causes and social expressions, and on the darker side, Neptune can push you to escape reality into the paradises you design within your mind. You are likely attracted to transcending opportunities or the occult for the mystifying spiritual experiences they may offer you. You may be drawn to obeying the traditional social patterns of society, and it makes you feel like a symbol of connectedness amid the chaos of humanity.

Pluto is the planet of transformations. When you have Pluto in your 1st House, you likely have a magnetic and intense personality. You seek adventure and experiences that bring exhilaration to your life. From a young age, you learned to be dependent on yourself, and found comfort in being alone. You are strong, passionate in pursuing your goals, and have incredible potential to transform yourself, but you can be merciless, mysterious, vindictive and even ruthless at times.

Pluto pushes you to seek integration of your inner life in a challenging and intense way. You maintain fundamental values, with uncompromising and even ruthless terms when getting to know your inner world. You are not afraid to do trial and error to seek your values, and connect with your center. Your aim is to become a central point for forces of a national and spiritual nature.