Introducing the 6th House
& the Greek God of Medicine, Asclepius
The latest installment of a series to explore the houses in an imaginal, mythic and expanded way
Level: All-levels
basic familiarity with your natal chart recommended
November 29 at 11 AM - 1 PM Pacific
(recording available to registrants)
In the Ancient Greek world, hospitals or Asclepions included spiritual treatment in addition to physical — baths, walks, theater, and notably dream incubation practices where the patient’s dreams were interpreted to source a cure for their ailment.
This is a history that we (Aliza Penelope and I as part of our imaginal workshops on the astrological houses) are contemplating to imagine the sixth house: the place in the natal chart that speaks to our relationship with health, healing, illness, crises, and preventative and holistic health. This is a place in the chart where crises, imperfections, and symptoms arise and initiate processes of learning. In our contemporary world we often are conditioned to focus on and treat symptoms themselves as opposed to interpreting them as expressions of a larger picture that the symptom itself is a “divination” of.
The 6th house squares the other cadent houses - the 3rd and 9th houses - where we find spiritual practices, ritual, symbolism, dreams, dreamwork and divination.
In the Ancient Greek world, hospitals or Asclepions included spiritual treatment in addition to physical — baths, walks, theater, and notably dream incubation practices where the patient’s dreams were interpreted to source a cure for their ailment.
Arnold Mindell, the founder of process work psychology, writes of symptoms as coming from our “dreaming body” and that physical symptoms, personal crises, relationship or community crises, are parts of our unconscious “dreaming body” making itself known to us. It is not just our body that produces symptoms, but also the very dramas of our waking lives when conflict erupts.
Our workshop is far more than looking into the natal chart for your relationship to health though that’s precisely a thing that we’re pointing to (without this being a medical class, it’s an astrology class). This workshop is about the core patterns you as a soul, experience ongoingly in different forms of crisis, and how learning to work with these lessons can go deeper in terms of healing than just approaching the level of the symptoms itself.
We are offering this workshop on the 6th house and uncovering what this house and its connections teach us about health and healing processes - how as much as we are spurred by discomfort or pain to want permanent relief - health journeys often constellate a process of learning, a process which may become just as much of a destination itself. The 6th house offers insight about chronic issues that we cope with (and the meaning that occurs alongside that) as well as reoccurring problems that shapeshift and produce new riddles at new levels of our initiations- which also contribute to cycles of crisis and learning.
From our experiences of illness or crisis to our conscientious tending of our ever-shifting material realm, the sixth house will point us to what it is that we cyclically are working on. The Asclepions were onto something by resourcing dream and dream divination as a way to solve health problems - there may be hidden meaning in our various crises that is not apparent or obvious through the set of symptoms alone. But the astrological sixth house and its ruler might offer clues on what archetypal vulnerabilities we have, or a part of our life that requires tending.
This class includes teachings on the 6th house from Evolutionary and Hellenistic perspectives, and research from the ancient Greek world as well as modern thought on holistic health. We will complete the class with a live workshop drawing from the natal charts of the live participants (recording available to those who register).
You will learn:
- Evolutionary/Modern & Ancient/Hellenistic influenced perspectives on the 6th house
- Myths of Asclepius & his family tree as a lens into your own experience of your 6th house and 6th house planetary ruler
- Ways to interpret the 6th house, 6th house ruler, and planets in the 6th house, to contemplate an individual's relationship with crisis, problem-solving, health and wellbeing.
Why it matters to reflect deeper on the sixth house:
The sixth house is said to be 'averse' from the first house which means that it is a place that the individual often cannot clearly see. Our struggles/crises disrupt our ordinary sense of agency but there is often also hidden self-knowledge we find along the path of working through these personal riddles.
If you are concerned with understanding a holistic or spiritual angle to your health or recurring patterns of struggle, a deeper treatment of the sixth house can support you in understanding how this area of life uniquely operates for you.
Meet your instructors
As a child of Mercury, Aliza finds great joy in sharing information. Her written work and conversations make metaphorical hyperlinks, connecting fields outside of yet related to cosmic exploration. These include: film, music and television media, visual and installation art, architecture, philosophy and theory. She is an astrologer with nearly half a century of lived experience and pastiched gnosis.
Her educational background includes Hellenistic, Evolutionary, Archetypal and Holotropic Astrology. Currently, she offers limited individual chart consultation and teaches classes inside Monarch Astrology’s DIVINER course container. Since January 2020, she has been Sabrina Monarch’s teaching assistant through several cohorts of the EA Intensive.
With a lunar Sun and angular Neptune, Aliza moves through the world in gestures rather than solid lines. Though she is steeped in astrological study, she believes her main qualifications are also less tangible. The deepest insights and connections in her own life have come to her in liminal spaces, in moments of collapse/grace, surprise encounters, losses, dreams and creative trance states. These are experiences she honors in others as much as objective accomplishments. Chaos and order are equally beautiful, as are success and failure. She holds no agenda for clients. Her only aim as astrologer is to pay attention – to the motions of the cosmos and the person in front of her. The goal is communion, and the road there is paved with unconditional positive regard. Find her at www.weavingthefirmament.com.
