Wrestling with the mysteries of the 8th house with two headline examples at the moment to chew over in Israel and Prince Harry, Martin Moritz’s book Pandora’s Box offers some perceptive insights.
“The eighth house is associated with entanglements, power games, boundary crossings, or dealing with taboos.”
“It is almost impossible to differentiate between good and evil, black and white, hero and villain. Things are muddled and mixed up.”
The book gives chart interpretations of historical characters from Elizabethan astrologer John Dee, Queen Victoria, through the Third Reich to Elzabeth Kubler Ross and Jane Goodall. He illuminates the different facets of 8th house experience from energy exchange, emptiness and vampiric sucking of energy, money and jealousy, sex and seduction through to resilience and transformation.
He remarks that the clients he sees who have 8th house planets are often ‘unhappy with the present, traumatized by the past, daunted by the future.’ Which fairly sums up Israel’s 8th house Taurus Sun and Prince Harry’s 8th house Virgo Sun.
‘Transformation only happens if there is a considerable shift in an individual’s thought and behaviour patterns.’ The inner saboteur is an 8th house issue along with fixation. Ideas on how things ought to be are stubbornly held onto despite the 8th house being the one which should encompass the values of others.
The 8th is about being possessed where the 2nd is having one’s own possessions. Everything is defined by others. Committing to a partnership requires letting go individual values in order to create new shared ones. What is yours becomes mine and vice versa. A loss of control. The 8th is where we are confronted with our own issues.
The title of the book refers to the 8th house gateway into another world, which like Pandora’s Box, contains evil, vice, sickness and death after it is opened but after all that has been experienced what remains is hope.
Searching around elsewhere for additional clues what seems crucial to an understanding of the 8th house experience is an acceptance that something other than the separate self influences and shapes experiences, development and destiny.
The eighth house is home of Typhon, the volcano god. If the second house has to do with control, then the eighth house has to do with lack of control which tends to lead to an attempt to hang tightly. There is a sense of permanence with the eighth house but only due to the monumentality of change. The individual has ancestral wounds that take not one generation but several to even begin to understand. Planets in the eighth house tend to work in super slow ways.
The 8th house represents that which we fear within ourselves or around us, and seek to restrain, something that is strong enough to take us over if it erupts. Finding a way to distance from the intensity of the full focus is a natural reaction when the centre space is in the “control of the monsters”. The core issue with Typhon seems to be the tension between the independent free expression of individuality and the need to be limited in action by the expectations and agreements of society, with the resulting necessity to control and/or repress aspects of one’s self.
The 8th is the house of “others” when intimate relationships hand over power to a partner whether financial or emotional. It brings a painful awareness of forces beyond individual manipulation and control.
A few celebrity examples with planets in the 8th. Dynastic families in particular seem to figure where the weight of the ancestors looms large.
JFK – Mars, Mercury, Jupiter in Taurus and Gemini Sun.
Actress Glenn Close – Pisces Sun and Mars Mercury.
Farah Fawcett – Sun, Mars, Mercury Aquarius.
Geraldine Chaplin – Moon Sagittarius
Lisa Marie Presley – Mars Moon Chiron in Pisces
Goldie Hawn – Mars Pluto in Leo and Saturn in Cancer on cusp.
Priscilla Presley – Pluto
Marlon Brando Pluto
Ryan O’Neal – Mars
Riley Keogh – Mars
Greta Garbo – Uranus
Gwyneth Paltrow – Uranus
Donald Sutherland – Uranus
Kiefer Sutherland – Uranus Pluto
Prince Frederik of Denmark – Uranus Pluto
Prince Andrew – Mercury
Robert Kennedy – Mercury
Cheyenne Brando – Mercury
Angelica Huston – Mercury and Pluto
Bobbi Christina Brown – Uranus Neptune
Whitney Houston – Neptune
Linda McCartney – Jupiter
Robert Downey Jnr – Saturn
This is a follow on from the October 4 2023 post on Princess Martha Louise where there were many generous and helpful comments from personal experience. Below for ease of finding and also under Princess Martha Louise in search.
33 thoughts on “Princess Martha Louise – a truly 8th house entanglement”
Marjorie
7th October 2023 at 10:30 am | Reply
Sandra, It surely does help and also to others who have shared. I am letting it bubble for a while since I don’t want to read too much into my own close encounters with 8th house family members.
What is churning about in my mind is a Liz Greene comment in her Psychopathology book which I will review shortly. (It is profoundly useful book for ‘ordinary types’ despite its lurid title.) She talks about one women with an 8th house Moon being a ‘channel for inherited conflicts and disturbances’ – in her case Holocaust parents. So what she feels really isn’t hers in a personal sense – it belongs through her parents to a collective turmoil.
The 8th house is blithely talked about as the house of the deeper unconscious and being driven by forces the individual does not understand or can always control. But reframing that as the house that lies beyond the ego and the separate self – it therefore takes down boundaries between I and ?? – what lies beyond. What Jung called the collective unconscious. Which is a churning mass of impulses, good and bad, belonging to all humankind.
So it may be the ‘monster’ which 8th house individuals feel resides within them is not ‘them’ at all. They are too identified with/flooded by the bubbling cauldron of the seven deadly sins (and virtues) which afflict all humankind. I am struggling to articulate it but it is beginning to formulate. It is one of the problems of the deeper unconscious that it lies far beyond the rational world and is therefore difficult/impossible to encapsulate in words.
Maybe it is why the other 8th house astrology book, which also needs reviewed is called Pandora’s Box. Best to keep the lid firmly snapped shut may be some 8th house individual’s defence against what might be let loose if they opened up. Almost like piling sandbags on the sea wall to keep the ocean at bay.
Again many thanks.
Sandra
7th October 2023 at 3:28 pm | Reply
🙂
I am smiling!
Yes, yes and more yes!!…..
Even as a child, I KNEW that what I was feeling inside was somehow more than just me, more than even just my parents and their story. But I had no words or knowledge of how to explain that.
In the early 90’s I attended a Process Oriented Psychology Intensive with Arnie Mindell. POP is based on Jungian psychology, Daoism and Physics!!… well THAT appealed to me. A psychology that covered everything, allowed everything (with a kind of fluidly held container) and respected everything as valuable in some way. This was a profound gift.
“piling sandbags on the sea wall to keep the ocean at bay”….. oh my.
My husband has often said that me doing that just makes it all worse!!!
Now THAT is funny, isn’t it?
I wanted to say that this isn’t all doom and gloom. The 8th house journey is fascinating, rich, and revealing! There is plenty of humour in all of this!
And…I also see it as a deep responsibility to explore and integrate this energy because it matters to the World. As I just read in your post about Israel and the Hamas… violence begets violence. Those of us with a strong 8th house.. we each can send out a different, healing Plutonian ripple.
At least, that’s one way to do it!!
Thanks so much Marjorie…. this has been a drop in my own Plutonian healing.
I, too, will pause and ponder… and read Pandora’s Box!!
You do offer such a gift to us all.
Marjorie
7th October 2023 at 4:22 pm | Reply
Have you any clue as to why you explored the depths of your 8th house and others don’t? Stupid question I know since it happens not just with 8th house issues.
Sandra
11th October 2023 at 4:55 am | Reply Hello dear Marjorie,
I am sorry for the delay in replying… might be moot by now!
The pre and post Thanksgiving comings and goings took up some time. Plus… this IS a $64,000 question and tracking an answer took me down many paths!
It’s so hard NOT to think of my astrology in answering… my chart perfectly describes my hard wiring for sure. All roads lead to my final dispositor of Mars in Aries in 3rd, which is the point of a kite for an air grand trine… directly opp. Jupiter in Libra in 9th. A seeker. A lot of courage.. often reckless with that!… but gets me going “fearward” for sure. SO many blessings with the right people or course at the right time. So my 8th House collection has had a lot of help.
To NOT use astrology? What then?? hmmm…..
The Nature Nurture question maybe?
My Dad would often say, “I just want to live long enough to know that my two girls can survive anything”. He regularly spoke of how HE had survived in the War… he did some awful things. I was not raised to get a good education. I was raised to be strong, to survive.. to think and to be responsible…. from a young age. We did play as kids, but work and responsibilities came very young.
And lastly… even with all this, by age 24 I was overweight, deeply depressed and having suicidal thoughts. I worked night shift with an older woman and one night I shared this with her. She leaned in close, looked me in the eyes, and said,
“That’s GREAT!! Great that you are depressed!!! NOW it gets interesting!! NOW you can go deep and discover who you are!!!”
She said it with so much joy and acceptance and PERMISSION that it stunned me.
Who says that about despair and suicide?
It worked because that exchange confirmed what my instinct knew… that ALL of this is important and meaningful and not to be judged bad or good. As Arnie Mindell would say… “teleological”… it all has a purpose…
even the darkest corners of who we are.
THAT set me on this path, Marjorie.
A path of freedom and a discovery of Truth….. truly the Mystery.
I’m reading a novel now… The Secrets Between Us.
On the back cover is this quote,
“It isn’t the words we speak
that make us who we are.
Or even the deeds we do.
It is the secrets buried
in our hearts.”
I think that’s what really in the Pandora’s Box of the 8th House!!! surprise!
but now?…. we are deep in the Israel / Hamas horror…. Pluto opens it’s doors again.
all the best,
thanks again
Curious
11th October 2023 at 11:27 am
Wow, Sandra, what a gift that older woman gave you.
I agree that depression can be a great gift if we tend to it with wisdom and patience.
So different from the mainstream tendency to try to medicalise it away.
Marjorie
11th October 2023 at 11:55 am
Thank you so much for this. What a wonderful story – it can be such a chance encounter that opens up a life and yet others maybe never have them or they do have them and ignore.
My head is scrambled with Israel at the moment but I will pull all the comments together and do another piece when my brain settles back down. Who’d have thought an odd Norwegian princess would spark all this off.
Again thank you and all power to you.
Marjorie
12th October 2023 at 9:42 am
Sandra, Pondering on depression it reminded me of psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s writings on the depressive position. She thought it was central to the child’s development, first experienced early on in the first year of life and repeatedly revisited intermittently throughout life.
Maturity, she thought was closely linked to facing up to and accepting loss and mourning. Working through, embracing and eventually overcoming/emerging from the depressive position should be regarded as a significant achievement. ‘Feel the pain and work through it.’ Not all are capable of it and many put up a bulwark of defences against it – which is presumably why they shut off any possibility of insight or the capacity for change.
It will affect non-8th housers as well but it may be more prevalent given the depths of the 8th house which it takes real courage and resilience to descend to the depths and re-emerge.
The ones I know well with 8th houses who put up a blank exterior are defensively cheerful and get distinctly snappy if pushed to look at any negatives.
Thank you again.
Lizzie
7th October 2023 at 3:53 pm | Reply
I want to thank you for this. I’m going to sit with it for a while. Very helpful for me, for all the times I’ve seen Death coming and couldn’t stop it. The guilt. The most high profile was John Lennon — I was at the Dakota the day before he died, saw the Angel of Death on the rooftop, tried to get to Lennon to warn him. Years later, in a book, I discovered I was standing next to his killer while talking to the security guard. My guilt went on for decades. I couldn’t save him! Neptune in the 8th, I’ve got to SAVE everyone. But maybe it wasn’t me at all, maybe I’m just picking up a signal, I didn’t have to save him. Well I’m never going to believe that, but this idea that I’m just a channel for the collective and it isn’t “me” at all….I appreciate that.
Gnarly Dude
8th October 2023 at 8:20 pm | Reply
Marjorie you wrote “– it therefore takes down boundaries between I and ?? –” … I don’t know if you intended this as a question but while 8th house is often labelled as “House of other people’s values” which makes sense because once you’ve decided in the 7th house that the person superficially meets your requirements (nice house, job, looks, appearance, polite); it is what happens next when you want to progress the relationship. So the big question is “do we share the same values?” or even “will you consider changing yours to match mine?” (or vice versa). I’d say It’s fairly clear most people never really think that deeply about their compatibility beyond the 7th house level and then wonder why their marriage fails. Even if they don’t divorce, it can be the old couple where they grow apart, argue or he goes off fishing or washes the car every weekend to get out of the house rather than spend time together.
But I’ll add that for me 8th house is also about “give and take”. How the two people in a relationship balance those things. My Neptune wants to give and give and give, and especially when I was younger it didn’t want to take because on some level it knows there is a cost when you accept from others i.e. a debt. And once you’re indebted, you have less freedom by being tied to the relationship whereas Neptune wants to remain free. So it gives selflessly and while there is no expectation of being paid back, it always gives the native the “get out” clause especially if they want to see themself as the victim … “after all I’ve done for you”.
Many relationships revolve around one partner doing all the giving and the other doing all the taking. Eventually, one day twenty years down the road, the giver realises they’re being taken for granted and leaves. The taker is then left bereft for obvious reasons. This is particularly demonstrated by individuals with Saturn in 8th. If they give anything to to the relationship, it’s only material and there is a careful mental note and balancing of the books. If they start to perceive too much being asked of them, they withdraw and just do what is expected, ticking the box without making any deeper commitment or effort. They volunteer no more to the relationship than they have to. There is no emotional communication or respect being given and to use the classic Saturn in 8th metaphor, the partner then stops wanting to have sex with them.
Anyway – not sure if that is helpful or all old news to you. Just thought I’d mention it in case.
Marjorie
9th October 2023 at 10:12 am | Reply
Thanks that makes a great deal of sense – I’ll come back to it later. Far too much going on at the moment.
Marjorie
11th October 2023 at 11:58 am | Reply
Sorry still distracted – I will tie this in when I find time to review Pandora’s Box which suggests that energy exchange is a key 8th house ability/necessity.
Crabby Old Leo.
5th October 2023 at 7:11 pm | Reply
A friend’s husband has an 8th house Neptune in Scorpio. He also has BML in Scorpio there.
I thought an 8th house Neptune was supposed to be deep and mystical and a sexual healer and all that, but no, apparently, definitely not. Reading the comments here, I never realised being “all on the surface” was typical of 8th house people, but that’s exactly what he’s like!
Sadly, she exploits him financially but he doesn’t seem to notice, or care. Typical apparently for an 8th house Neptune.
I have an 8th house Chiron in pisces opposite my Pluto in Virgo, and also widely opposite my Leo Sun. It’s a very, very difficult placement in ways I don’t want to elaborate on.
Gnarly Dude
5th October 2023 at 5:47 pm | Reply
I’ve got Scorpio 7th / Sag 8th with Jupiter-Neptune on the cusp of the 8th. I have always been fascinated by other people – their ideas, their likes, their interests etc. I have always wanted a deep and meaningful relationship. I can get absorbed in other people if they have something interesting to share. I didn’t really have many of my own ideas when I was younger – so maybe that’s some of the shallowness/opaqueness Marjorie mentions.
Recently though I’ve come to realise, and this is probably an age thing, I get very bored of other people very quickly. They tell me their stuff and then on subsequent meetings they just repeat the same stuff over and over. If I’m not learning from them, I lose interest. I wonder if Princess Martha has something like this going on with Durek – all his 9th /10th house energy having much to tell but blinding her to his real nature.
Trouble is while I’m a great listener, I notice they’re not interested in knowing about me or what I have to teach them – Jupiter-Neptune Sag. People never seem to ask me anything about me, what I do, who I am etc. I can start telling them stuff and I see the shutters coming down.
I’ve begun to suspect my listening skills and knowledge retention scare people off. If you’ve told me a story or a detail about you, I’ll remember it. I synthesise what they tell me and I think the reformatted version breaks through their awareness level and panics them. 8th house Sag foot in mouth even though it’s not taboo subjects, just stuff they’re uncomfortable with.
There is much more with the 8th house planets being in a t-square. The empty leg is being hit by transiting Saturn in Pisces at the moment and I notice I am becoming much more selective in what I say, ask and reveal about myself. Drawing up better boundaries to stop wasting my energy on people who will ultimately not give me what matters to me. That’s the trouble with 8th house neptune, it does a lot of giving but doesn’t expect or ask for much in return. It absorbs other people’s values – I have had to work at figuring my own out.
When Saturn went through seven years ago, I realised money and material stuff is much more important to other people in relationships, whereas for me it has always been about the intangible quality of the relationship. I stopped making the effort when buying presents to get the best possible gift that they would appreciate and be meaningful to them. No-one seemed to mind and buying presents went from anxiety about making the perfect selection to just grab something off the shelf or send the godchildren money. Huge weight off my shoulders! I guess that’s where my idealism lay.
Lizzie
5th October 2023 at 5:10 pm | Reply
Moon/Neptune in Scorp in the 8th, ruler of the chart. Near-death experience as a teenager left me with the ability to see Death coming. It’s not a psychic ability that makes a person particularly popular. I would tell you more about my life, but I can’t bear to reveal myself. LOL. I bought the book, BTW. Very interesting and one of the charts in the book is the French impressionist Gustave Caillebotte, my absolute favorite painter of all time. Everything was in the 8th house with him, I didn’t know. Consciously.
Trish
5th October 2023 at 6:12 pm | Reply
Pluto in Leo in the 8th- like a lot of my generation, although square mars in scorpio. Not easy. I have always been drawn to situations/ careers involving death/ people’s emotional pain probably due to my own personal experiences and have had to learn to control some intense emotional feelings, not always succesfully. Whatever I go through people always say that I will win through- and I do eventually seem to.
I understand that this placement can offer considerable hidden power. Having watched a close relative, with most probably pluto in the 8th house, also, I have seen how destructive uncontrolled aggression can be. I am not usually seen as controlling but have often found myself trapped in situations- until something( probably jupiter) rescues me. The challenge for this placement I think is to be able to harness the knowledge gained through personal experience- and rejuvenation from it- to help other people, rather than to harm them.
Sandra
6th October 2023 at 5:59 pm | Reply
Hello Trish. Ah yes.. Pluto in the 8th… it’s something isn’t it? I think of it as The Fox in the Henhouse. In Placidus, my 8th house is huge from early Leo to the end of Virgo. Pluto in the 8th at 0 Virgo, preceded by a Merc/Uran conj. in early Leo, just in the 8th. Thank goodness my Pluto is trine my Moon and has no challenging aspects! Still, it’s bee quite a ride… a life of many, many crises! I am happy to have a lot of Fire, Sag rising and a strong Jupiter.. whew!!
Marjorie… when I read your observation, “a living on the surface opaqueness”, I immediately had a picture of Princess Diana in my mind! It got me thinking…
A heavy 8th house means a direct relationship with the Taboo… direct. It’s IN you and you KNOW it from a very young age. Certainly my family history of war and displacement and deep suffering describes something of that Pluto in the 8th. I honestly felt like I had been in the war… viscerally felt that.
When young, I knew I had both Good and a kind of Evil in me. I felt like I had a Hitler in me and, if I did, then everyone did! So there is a deep suspicion and wariness of other people… that they are hiding this part of themselves and that that is dangerous.
However, it is also that I knew I was dangerous to others! That my Plutonian access to raw, unfiltered emotion was direct and sudden…. huge anger, huge desire to lash out in a destructive way.,, even to kill! Of course, this is completely unacceptable in a civilized society, so it MUST be controlled, kept hidden… managed. Thank God for the bloodiest of Grimm’s fairy tales. I read them obsessively as a child… they presented a kind of answer to my struggle with Good and Evil in me. Not logically but in some deeper way. I am soooo grateful I did not grow up with pink and purple and cute Disney characters!!
If I really let this part of me show, I scare the hell out of people. I have only one friend who I can share this with since she, too, is the same. VERY few people can accept this Plutonian energy… it is dangerous. Even my husband is too tender hearted to really take this part of me in.
So that opaqueness you see? For me it is likely for at least 2 important reasons. Most importantly… To protect the other person. And, two. To protect myself. Because this energy is so taboo, it is often projected ONTO a person with a strong 8th house… on to me. Many people will have planets that, by synastry, will sit in my 8th house. That seems to open an uncomfortable at best, and dangerous, at worst door in the other person. They will think and say and do things that reveal THEIR shadow.. often very suddenly… and they cannot hold that in themselves. So it must then be projected onto the Other.
In Nature?…. this raw, instinctual energy simply exists. It’s not judged. Humans dance at the edges of this… BDSM, etc. But we cannot let it just express as it might want to!!
I think this is why a strong 8th house person MUST go deep into their own darkest corners, resolve or integrate them.. so THEY can hold a taproot in these circumstances. It’s also a good idea to find healthy avenues of expression for this energy…. a career in psychology, martial arts, etc.
Still… I almost never feel free to simply BE the total of who I am.
And so, I can appear distant.
Marjorie
6th October 2023 at 7:01 pm | Reply
Sandra, That is very helpful. Thank you for sharing. I will mull over and revert maybe tomorrow. It is beginning to make some sense. The ones I was thinking about that I know seem fixedly almost desperately determined to keep everything light, bright and superficial. Push to go deeper and you (the outsider) meet a wall of hostile resistance which may be fear of as you say exposing what lies down in the darkness.
Sandra
7th October 2023 at 2:13 am
You are welcome, Marjorie.
Certainly I have always had a feeling that if people REALLY got to know me more deeply, they would see that Shadow in me… and turn away and even be repelled. That I am a monster! I was most certainly a sweet and nice child/adult…a people pleaser. Seeking love but terrified of rejection.
That hostile resistance, the opaqueness… yes… I’ll bet it’s Fear. Fear of that coming out of them, or coming AT them. It is also, ultimately, a fear of BEING powerful.. what that would really take in me? The vulnerability of being exposed TO GETTING KILLED if I step up to a place of power. That is incredibly real.. again… deep in the lower chakras!
I work one on one as a health professional. I also am an astrologer. Both those jobs… my 10th house… offer me a safe place to let that 8th house depth and honesty connect with my heart and offer a safe place for my client. There is a freedom in that context for Pluto to be freer!!
thanks for listening,
this has truly been my Life’s Work, I’d say.
hope it helps some
Trish
7th October 2023 at 7:19 pm | Reply
That’s really interesting and fascinating Sandra. Thank you.I have pluto tri my moon , lots of fire, Sagittarius ascendant and a strong Jupiter too!!! Mars in Scorpio in my 10th house and a strong fascination with psychology. Also an awareness that astrological knowledge and insight has to be used carefully and benignly as the power it gives over someone vulnerable can be used to damage them emotionally if a reading is not given with the best of intentions.
Marjorie
5th October 2023 at 9:36 am | Reply
Thank you to all who shared. I will return to it when I review Pandora’s Box soon.
What has always puzzled me since I have family members and several friends with significant 8th house planets is that their ‘secrecy’, not surprising from 8th house, comes across as a living-on-the-surface opaqueness. Almost as if they did not have an interior life, which clearly can’t be true, but the reluctance to share does project a blankness which is unsettling. In certain cases I wonder if the interior life is closed off altogether because of an acute fear of what inner exploration and insight might bring.
The 8th house is always written up as the place of transformation and regeneration but the ones I can think of have an unchangingess, which may be partly the dislike of letting go – but it can last a lifetime. There is no sense of evolution.
Being a highly Uranian, Mercurial, endlessly curious jitterbug it has always puzzled me.
“A” Fan
5th October 2023 at 12:11 am | Reply
I like the reader quiz survey – maybe a fruitful periodic thing to feature ( said the 8th house Sun occupant and lover of secrets and investigation)
Geraldine
4th October 2023 at 8:24 pm | Reply
Thank you Marjorie, 8th House with Sun 28° Pisces plus North Node Chiron Moon between 0° and 3°Aries: it is just one slice of the pudding, Lady and it is not always a piece of cake! As of today, I am still grateful for ALL I have experienced (in 18 countries) from the forceps eclipse birth up to now, currently very much through life transition, staying with family members and praying for another dwelling solution as early as possible == I’ve paid extra attention to what others did not notice, from an early age, I am mesmerized by the Emptiness of It all during exceptional visible & invisible encounters who remind me of Grace exactly here on Earth. So perfect! I may act/speak/write/draw too much in hover mode though…but I do cook/clean precisely carefully minutely (Virgo rising!)
Kim
4th October 2023 at 7:48 pm | Reply
Using Placidus, six planets in the 8th house. Sun Virgo (1°) conjunct Venus Virgo (0°) Mars Leo (29°) with Pluto Leo (26°) and Jupiter Leo (15°). Mercury Virgo (19°). Came out of the womb asking why. Existentialist. Intense. Serious. Hate being controlled which can be that Venus/Mars conjunction. Fiercely independent. Very honest. Always seeking more information. Fascinated with occult. Made money not through inheritance as Pluto would suggest but from working very hard (Saturn in 10th) and through corporations. Gifted with written word. I’ve tried to study this stellium in the 8th and quizzed many a professional astrologer. After six decades of living with it, my conclusion is that the journey is not an easy one, but the destination always works out.
“A” Fan
5th October 2023 at 1:21 am | Reply
“… the journey is not an easy one, but the destination always works out.”
~ and then ya die! says this 8th House Sun+Jup resident. I too love a good info dig, but Nope on freely sharing my honest takes (kudos to u -unproudly I admit omission is my most common form of lying). Hiding and social escape hatches feel like survival to me ( tho isolation is no friend ). Sunset to dawn are my favorite hours. Death plus a side of sex routinely infiltrates my thoughts. And h a n g i n g on is my unwanted superpower (romantically hellish when it ends, and carrying resentment gets heavy).
I love depth and a good mystical plunge. And I cackle when mistaken for a Scorpio (ha!). But I feel for ze princess. How rare to feel comfy enough to open the door and not fear banishment for the intensity! To have a hand to reach for while peering through the darkness.
I suspect the mess that churns up when diving deep is what scares “non residents” away – and feels lonesome/rejecting for us occupants to witness – but it’s the light beyond that draws ….like there is a secret tunnel of light at the very bottom of the ocean if I just f u l l y dive thru. How rare to feel one can share that oxygen with another. I imagine the tall dark foreigner feels like her potent and sacred ally.
To the mystical rich 8th house – may the wealth of rejuvenating regeneration visit us all.
Leagee October 2023 at 7:34 pm | Reply
You’ve described an 8th house person perfectly, Marjorie, especially my granddaughter (22/11/89 Lincoln, UK, 16:25) She has a stellium in her 8th house in Capricorn with Uranus at 3°, Neptune and Saturn at 10 and 11° opp her Jupiter at 9° Cancer, then Venus at 16° Capricorn opp her Chiron at 16° Cancer. She is indeed ‘exceedingly stubborn and impervious to either advice, argument or evidence’ which has cost her many friendships and some partnerships, but she is unable to see this herself as she always believes she is right. She is also a rather unlucky person with unfortunate things happening in her life over which she has no control. We, her family love her dearly, of course, but she’s hard work.
Jed
4th October 2023 at 5:16 pm | Reply
Using the Koch system I have Sun ( Virgo 16) conjunct North node/mercury(Virgo 23)/Pluto (virgo 6) and Venus( Libra 7) in 8th house, I would describe myself as intense, open-minded, and a truth seeker but perhaps gullible. I hang on too long to things but am grateful when finally I let go.
(8/9/60 5.25pm Rochford Essex, England)
MK
4th October 2023 at 3:16 pm | Reply
You have done my chart before. I have Saturn in 8th house Gemini, born 5 Dec 71 at 1:45 am, Rio de Janeiro. In my case I think I struggle with communication. I grew up with grandparents and I feel that I have intimacy issues, I am afraid of losing myself in relationships. I have worked in Financial Services and have looked after “other people’s money”. My father was a Scorpio, obstetrician and I only met him a few times. My Saturn in Gemini opposes my Neptune in Sagittarius and I always meet people who hit this aspect, mainly making a conjunction with their planets such as Moon, Venus, Mercury and Mars to my Neptune. I always struggle with debts as well due to overspending. My Cancer (ex-) partner never has a proper job and I have to rely on myself. I tend to have a lot of connections with Gemini people and my son is Gemini too. Saturn in 8th: I have experienced sexual assault in adulthood and other similar issues during my childhood. I have close relationships with Sun Pluto opposition people, such as my aunt and son.
“The eighth house is associated with entanglements, power games, boundary crossings, or dealing with taboos.”
Sounds like the recent past/present in the UK, with the refugees crossing over the Channel (boundary crossings), multiple Prime Ministers in the past two years and Suella Braverman’s recent antics (power games) and dealing with Brexit, antisemitism and Islamophobia (dealing with taboos).
Is there something going on in the UK’s eighth House by either transit or by Solar Arc, Marjorie?
Transiting and Solar Arc Uranus and transiting Jupiter
‘unhappy with the present, traumatized by the past, daunted by the future… Everything is defined by others.’
This is the very essence of my 8th house Sun experience. I have never heard it defined so well.
Thank you for your timely post. My 8th house has Pisces Covering the entire house, with Saturn about to transit the whole thing. Wounds I thought I had healed 30 years ago are rising again, and it hurts. I feel way too sensitive. South node in Pisces, conjunct Persephone conjunct Chiron, with Juno in the 8th house, and Pallas Athena in the 8th house as well. Neptune has been transiting for years. Mediumistic tendencies (family members only). My natal Neptune in the 4th house in Scorpio square Mars and Jupiter which are oppose each other. A famous astrologer took one look at my chart and said “Religious Wars” and I said how on earth did you know. The wounding has resurfaced is religious in nature. It took me years to get over to my North Node in Virgo. I want to get back over there. North Node in Virgo, conjunct Fortuna, conjunct Path of Fortune (a point I know), conjunct Pluto, with Proserpina (different) at late Virgo. Dad had five planets in Virgo, and helped me to extricate myself from that 8th house morass. There was a depression in my 30’s. There is ancestral involvement – both my sister and I dream about them. This post was timely and helpful. Periodically Secrets will surface, and I understand my parents so much better and am grateful. I needed this post tonight.
I joined a bible study group of people in Dad’s old neighborhood and now wish I did not Not to be offensive to anyone, and I won’t go into too many details. I hung out with the Jung Society in DC for 18 years, and have read on astrology and done yoga for 25, but I also have an engineering degree and business. I should have known better than to join this group – and yes there is a strain of evangelicalism in the USA, that has fear and wrath and fear of God’s wrath at its center. So, guess I need to dig into this. I am not going down that rabbit hole agani. Nice people, trying to help me, not what I need. I have been treated for cancer since July of 2022, which is why I am here, and this area saved my life, so I am grateful, and there is a lot of other support besides this group, but I lived on the East Coast for 25 years, and the South is just different.
I know that my deepter self, my unintegrated parts, my pieces that need airing have set before me a task. Time to dust off my old copy of Memories Dreams and Reflections.
My first therapist who was transpersonal thought that life was like a spiral and we continually come round to the same issues time and again but from a higher/different perspective. Not necessarily spiritual but with age, experience and maturity you experience the early problems with hopefully more insight.
Venus in the 8th Gemini. For me she has meant no money ever from childhood to now, in my sixties. My grandparents had Pluto conjunct
my Venus and were the only love I ever had in the family. My father in law also, I cared for him dying of cancer, we got on like a house on fire. It was a privilege but got me no accolades especially from his truly vile daughter, Scorpion. 8th house ruler.
My mother died after a very long illness with Saturn on my Venus, and that did not go unnoticed by myself.
And my mortal enemies both born on same day, different years have Venus opposite mine and have taken every penny they could get from my life. One had Pluto to her Venus in 7th and scooped the jackpot with a second marriage, me doomed to penury. I never cared much for money but it truly pisses me off that bad people get a better life because they get money that they don’t deserve. I know that sounds like sour grapes and it is. And that has taken a lot for me to admit that. When said Pluto opposed my Venus I almost died. Spooky. Hope that helps someone out there.
My solar arc Venus has just hit natal Pluto exact this summer and I have been saving like a mad thing and been offered bank loans, credit cards etc constantly.
Little money Venus to big money Pluto? Bizarre, never happened to me before, the opposite in fact.
Lyn – do you have Saturn in 2nd, maybe Sag or Capricorn? The 2nd is about how you earn your own money. I have saturn in 2nd and have always been poorly paid. Only time I earned a decent amount was the three years Saturn transited through there but I worked almost every day for it without holidays too.
The 8th is how money comes to you from other people or how you give it away to other people.
One Saturn in the 2nd house I have never understood is King Charles – not short of the Midas touch, stingy in some ways and horribly profligate in others.
As I try to absorb this post and everyone’s comments, I note that I have an empty 8th house. My son, on the other hand, has a Sagittarius Mercury in the 8th trine Leo Moon in the 4th trine a retrograde Saturn in aries in the 12th – so a grand trine. His Leo moon is opposite Jupiter and Uranus in the 10th. And his 12th house Saturn is square Venus & Mars in the 9th house. His Leo moon is conjunct my Sun/Jupiter/Mercury. We both share the same retrograde Saturn & there are absent fathers for both of us. My son is very much into delving into the taboo, such as death & a deeper exploration of the mind. He studied Philosophy & Law at university. We have a fair amount of trauma in our family & he seems to be a connection to members of the family that have become estranged & his extremely good at talking to them about ‘things’ that they wouldn’t ordinary talk about. I’m not fully sure how to interpret all this & the 8th house, but maybe writing this down will help me.
As a forever student of astrology, this post & comments are really enlightening & have given me much food for thought – thank you
Pearl, I have always been fascinated by the way that certain family members appear to have a direct channel to the ancestors while siblings and parents may not have. There seems no rhyme or reason to it – maybe there is somewhere but yet to be found.
Libra Moon and Libra Neptune (8degs separation) in the 8th, Pisces Asc with Jup in Pisces in 12th and Moon ruling empty 5th. I am very secretive. I have a deep love and interest in astrology, but it’s not something a lot of people know about me. I realised a long time ago that I tend to see my loved ones through rose-coloured glasses.
Marjorie, thank you for this enlightening post. I have an empty 8th house with Sun in the 2nd. My entire family has empty 8th house as well, so I have not paid much attention to it. This changed when I had a kid. She has 8th house Saturn and Leo stellium in the 7th. My husband has an 8th house Sun, and he is a deep thinker. No interest in anything in the occult, however. I read so much about the 8th house after our kid to understand what it meant. As she grew, she developed anxiety issues. We cannot get her on any flight anymore. She used to fly just fine before. We think that her anxiety changes shape as she grows. She is 12, so I am not sure what will come up from all this, but in one source, I read that Saturn 8th house people live very long. They may suffer illnesses, but they have longevity. A mother’s hope. . .
hello Bette.
My experience with my own full 8th house is that there is (always?) a deep connection with a multigenerational story… either one or both lineages. Is it possible that there are some hidden, difficult and/or darker historical stories in your families that your daughter is now wired into by having that Saturn in the 8th? Saturn would suggest the Father, Grandfather, authority?, military?, etc… but not always.
This is certainly true in my own chart. I was a sickly, anxious, overwhelmed child in many ways. Like I said earlier, I somehow knew I was tuning into a bigger history in our family but had no words or guidance for this. However…. it was validating to just know that… that it wasn’t just ME and my personal problems. I didn’t start looking specifically at this until age 24, however… it helped to have a sense that I was carrying multigenerational pain and that there was going to be a purpose in that.
The 8th house is definitely not just the occult. It IS the realm of secrets, the Shadow, the instincts…. the taboo. Understanding where that lies in your family stories, integrating that into YOUR consciousness will help your daughter. Right now, she might be a lightning rod for ALL of this history.. carrying it in an energy, emotional, anxious way.
Maybe…. similar to not having planets in a certain element… not having any planets in the 8th puts a kind of focus on that area of yours and your husband’s chart? I only have Pluto at 0 Virgo (in the 8th!!)…. and I have often said that I will have the epitaph…. “desperately seeking Earth!!”
I hope I have not offended you…. your daughter, at 12, is at an important stage in her life!
take care,
hello again Bette!
a sharing on Saturn..
I have Saturn in the 12th, opposite Venus in the 6th.
I’ve read that 12th house planets are Master Teachers, and most certainly my Saturn has been this.
Yes… sometimes a hard taskmaster, however, I have come to appreciate Saturn immensely!!
I call Saturn the Master Craftsman.
There is an infinity of choices within Saturn’s limits!
Saturn in the 8th would be special, I think.
All the best,
I know two people, married for decades, both with Saturn in the 8th and they are inveterate world travellers – by plane and always have been. So it may not be connected to her Saturn in the 8th. They have made it to a ripe old age with few health issues, no interest in the occult – indeed probably a fear of anything like that. Domestically rooted, living in same house for ever.
Like you I have no 8th house planets though several in my family do. But it struck me the other day that my draconic Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and Chiron fall in my natal 8th which is maybe what is prompting me to grapple with and try to understand what the 8th means.
GD’s comment also rang a bell about those who find giving up stuff easy since they were never invested in it. I’m one of those and have never understood (and being Virgo was fairly judgmental about) those who were seemingly unbudgeable.
It is one of the real benefits of astrology that it brings an understanding that all people are different and have to grapple with different problems.
Sandra and Marjorie, thank you for your comments.
I find astrology fascinating, as it helps to understand some of the issues we face. We all live them differently, however.
That is a very enlightening article on the power of the 8th house, thank you Marjorie. It is so true. I have Chiron in pisces in the 8th house. I have struggled very hard to try to earn my own living, struggling against what seems like insurmountable difficulties. I have been financially dependant for large parts of my adult life. It shouldn’t be that way, I am very educated with qualifications, in theory I should be successful….but Chiron is opposite Pluto (conjunct Venus) and Sun in the 2nd. Sexuality has also been a deeply wounding experience for me.
I, too, have the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction in the 8th, as part of a T Square with Chiron in the 2nd opposing and Libra Neptune in the 11th.
I seem to naturally know what other people want. Whereas I would’ve thought I would be the one expecting too much from other people, I am usually the one who pays more on outings, generous to my own disadvantage. A Cancer friend of mine thinks I am Santa Claus and I am having a hard time getting her to understand my resources are not hers.
Good post with some very accurate descriptions of 8th house matters.
I have a Sun/Mars conjunction in my 8th House in Cancer, along with Moon and Mercury in Leo there as well. My Sun Moon and Mars are all squared by a 10th House Pluto in Scorpio so as you might guess the energies are very intense. If it wasn’t for the fact that Saturn trines my Sun/Mars conjunction I think things would be pretty wild. As it is I am obsessed wth the past and worried about the future, I don’t live in the present much.
A good thing that I am not in a position of power or high office as although I can keep a lid on this most of the time, when this part of my chart takes charge and is not channelled in a constructive way it is merciless. As it is I spend a lot of time trying not to be overwhelmed by it. I don’t really want to look too far into it as I’m afraid of this side of myself TBH.
Wow–so interesting!
I have Neptune in Scorpio in the 8th and was thinking about that comment about the 8th & deep unconscious stuff–with Neptune in Scorpio there it seems that that would unlock even more deep unconscious/nebulous stuff. And then seeing the comments from the people w Neptune in the 8th feeling they need to save others. I’m the oldest in my family and had a mentally unwell mother (Neptune? in the 8th? She was medicated & not all there. She also liked to just sit and daydream. I still love to daydream and I love remembering my nightly dreams..) Being the oldest, I learned to be a helper. Was a teacher for 30 years–same instinct now deeply honed (which I’m trying to un-learn because I don’t have the teacher-student relationships going on anymore.) Also–the comments on giving & having an imbalance with others. That was true for me too. My Neptune has a few transits but just looking at it on its face–it’s very very interesting.
I share with Geraldine Chaplin having the moon in sagittarius and in my case it’s opposite the north node and conjunct the Galactic Centre.
I have a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction at 25 Cancer in the 8th as well as Pluto at 26 Leo also in the 8th square Saturn at 19 Scorpio in the 11th. The Moon is conjunct Pluto at 28 Leo at the cusp of the 9th. I find my literary or cultural interests in the 9th are often tied to collective suffering (Russian literature, the Holocaust, genocides) which are themes of the 8th. And I have a psychologically powerful and healthy long-time marriage partner to whom I have handed power over my life to find much-needed stability. There have been tragedies involving parents, grandparents and greatgrandparents in both family lines. My daughter is completing a doctorate in psychology and is now seeing her first patients: she has Jupiter in the 8th sextile a Chiron-Mercury conjunction in Gemini on the MC and trine a Saturn-Uranus conjunction in the 4th. Perhaps all this suffering will be finally resolved.
Marjorie,
I have Sun & Neptune conjunction in 8th house; an Aquarius ascendant and Mars in Aries in 3rd. No wonder I’ve always been at a loss to sort out my life! I was born 18 Sept. 1941.
Thank you for your astrology site. I read your astrology pages every day.
I’ve never really considered it but I guess the reason the 8th house contains what we fear is because we aren’t open to accepting it. If we accept it then we have to change who we are and by changing we then have to redevelop our relationships to the world around us. With change, we have both the chance to gain something for the better but risk losing what we had especially if it is relationships with others and they won’t change. Most people cannot accept loss voluntarily. There are those who seem good at giving stuff up, flitting from one thing to the next, but it is probably because they never invested in it and held it close enough for the loss to register. Investment is another 2nd/8th house theme.
Pluto in Leo in the 8th opposition Moon in Aquarius in the second. Borderline Personality Disordered parents, with violence and shaming the means of controlling the family. Twenty five years of psychotherapy, sometimes three times a week, to make inroads to healing.
Ex friend had Moon in Aquarius in 8th opposition Mars. Maternal line including grandmother were deeply controlling, religious, angry, judgmental of everyone and toxic. My friend never overcame the awful legacy she inherited, refused therapy because she thought it was demeaning and eventually morphed into her mother.
W O W
Christmas hath arrived … and the unwrapping begins~~~
Very deep enlightening comments….being able to write what one is frightened to speak to any human lest b taken as insane in excessive logical obsessed world is what makes this site truly coming back to.
I agree with many as I went thru same kind like them but with 8 empty house the trouble is world looks at you thru your 2nd house personality which one doesn’t like to b taken as ,at times or by unknowns …u can’t hide yet u don’t want to validate to strangers n solidify an image too.
V need to look at 2h from 8h eyes as 8h means world too n that makes it more complicated