The 4th House, the received and transmitted heredity
- Attached to Cancer (and the Moon), symbolizing “I feel”
- Axis of incarnation, of fulfilment of life
- Mode : Cardinal (Angular)
- Element : Water (psychology)
The 4th House, also called Imum Coeli represents your roots, your foundations, as well as your heredity (your parents and ancestors, your education, your childhood, your traditions, your societal environment), your home (the family circle, the house, the relocations or fittings, the interior comfort), your homebody side, your privacy, your intimacy (your emotions or your unspoken feelings), your emotional security. By extension this house represents the “It” (“Id” in latin), the unconscious, all those things that condition us unconsciously. Traditional astrology considers it as the house of “the end of things”.
In general, we attribute this sector to :
- To “the mother” in the generic Rulerships, given the Moon ruler
- Sometimes for men, to the father
- For women, to the mother
Some astrologers also vary this attribution during the course of life, for example for a man the 4th House will represent the father in childhood and adolescence while the 10th House will represent him in adulthood (for a woman it will be the mother who will be represented by the 4th House in childhood and then the 10th House once adulthood).
In order to carry out this more precise and reliable attribution of the 4th House to the father or mother, it is advisable to analyse the entire birth chart. This attribution is not so much due to the real anatomical gender of the parent as to his or her actual psychological role in the home with the child : absent mother, overprotective father, reconstituted family… there are several possibilities !
Here it is especially the parent who brings security, who reassures emotionally, who takes care of the native at home, who is indicated…
The Sign in the 4th House of your Imum Coeli, indicates both your behaviour towards your relatives and your traditional society (the past), as well as your way of establishing your own family, its foundations and the cultural heritage to pass on to it (the future).
The Planets in the 4th House and their Aspects in the chart thus bring the energy of the past to be transmitted and manage your deep world, the Imum Coeli is a very important angular location in the construction of the individual.
The transits in the 4th House are at the hinge of the Individuation process, involving the family and the native’s bases, they can have repercussions in other delicate areas.
Analyzing the 4th House :
- First look at his opposite house, the 10th House (the midheaven), symbolizing social achievement.
- Then look at the Squares : the 7th House, the 1st House (the Ascendant) (Angular Houses, representing action)
- Take into account the Trines: the 10th House, the 12th House (Water Houses, representing psychology)
Planets Rulerships Analogy :
With the 4th House we are halfway in the hemisphere of introversion, of our secret world, of matter, of inner life.
See the Astrological Houses.