Introducing the 2nd House
& the myth of Midas, the king whose touch turns objects into gold
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The latest installment of a series to explore the houses in an imaginal, mythic and expanded way
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Level: All-levels
basic familiarity with your natal chart recommended
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April 29 at 11Â AMÂ - 2Â PM Pacific
(recording available to registrants)
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Perhaps you have heard the myth of the King Midas, who famously wished that all he touched would turn into gold. The wish is originally motivated by a kind of insatiable desire for wealth, which we could call greed, but we can also see some issues with true reception. Don’t we always want more more more when we are numb to what we have? (And aren’t there times it’s valid for us to want more, because we actually need?)
The immediate problem with his wish is that it comes true too well - turning his food to gold so he cannot eat, and even turning his daughter into gold so that she perishes before his eyes into a golden statue.
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This is a myth that we (Aliza Penelope and I as part of our imaginal workshops on the astrological houses) are working with to imagine the second house: the place in the natal chart that speaks to our relationship with resources, money, personal assets, what is we own, self-esteem, the body. It is a house that deals with money that we can say is ours, as opposed to money that is merged with others. It is our earning power, as well, the capacity that we have to “turn things into gold”.
The myth of Midas does not end badly: he is able to get his wish un-granted, and restore his daughter’s life. But first you can imagine his despair — which is what motivates his change of heart and his development of more complex realization of what is valuable. Not that money isn’t valuable but it’s not supreme. And we have our own versions of this - where we hyper-focus, at a cost, and how we learn to round out our story as to what really matters at the end of the day after all of our strivings.
I have noticed that as long as people are hungering for something they don’t have, the motivation can be endlessly “to get”, whereas when people achieve the having there is often a change of heart. A person who feels they have enough (regardless of how they define “enough” as this would look different for a NYC based investment banker versus a person who spins wool in the Andes, versus you name the context) tends to open up and share and circulate the resource.Â
A person who doesn’t feel they have enough (regardless of whether they actually do or not) may be more conservative with what they have and be trying to get more.
The second house speaks to how we relate to resource and our own resourcefulness, and quite possibly our own version of “Midas Touch”, or that ability that we have to turn things into gold in the positive sense (fruitfulness) and the negative sense (our hungry ghost inner-void that wishes for the golden touch in the first place because of the fulfillment we believe it will bring us).
I can promise you that our workshop is far more interesting than looking into the natal chart for how you can make money, even though that’s precisely a thing that we’re pointing to (without this being a business class, it’s an astrology class).
But it’s so much more than that: it’s about what you as a soul, experience as worthwhile, and the ways your pursuits of worth and worthiness take you to hell metaphorically speaking (Midas who accidentally turns his daughter to gold, the workaholic who misses out on love in life for example) or dig you out of hell metaphorically speaking (grant you resource, buffer, cover, from dire circumstances whether literally or psychologically and take you to a more protected, nourishing, provisioned place).
(*In Hellenstic Astrology, the 2nd house is known as the "Gate of Hades" and has a relationship therefore to Hell and the underworld, a dynamic we will be exploring in our workshop.)
From our basic and most essential needs to our more complex, self-actualized, creative needs, the second house will point us to what it is that we distinctly bring to the table, or what we have and how we have and accumulate. This is a place we might at times feel very alone in, as the question of worth or what we own or have is a very solo/personal question in some sense: but it is part of a matrix of social systems, communities, networks, and our access and ability to exchange resource with those networks. There is a friction between our own worth dynamics and stories and the cultural context we have fond ourselves in, and how we negotiate or find a niche/belonging therein.
The natal chart holds messages about not just the nature of our assets/resources but how we increase/accumulate them, what’s our secret Midas Touch if you will. We will be offering teachings about the second house from Hellenistic and Evolutionary standpoints, and then workshopping with you about your second house, second house planetary ruler, and what it has to say about your Midas Touch.
This class includes teachings on the 2nd house from Evolutionary and Hellenistic perspectives, and the Midas myth. We will complete the class with a live workshop drawing from the natal charts of the live participants (recording available to those who register).
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You will learn:
- Evolutionary/Modern & Ancient/Hellenistic influenced perspectives on the 2nd house
- Myths of Midas as a lens into your own experience of your 2nd house and 2nd house planetary ruler
- Ways to interpret the 2nd house, 2nd house ruler, and planets in the 2nd house, to discover an individual's relationship with worth, self-esteem, earning power, money, resources, and their personal Midas Touch
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Why it matters to reflect deeper on the second house:
The second house is said to be 'averse' from the first house which means that it is a place that the individual often cannot clearly see. It can be difficult to see our own value, or our own assets that we translate into material and financial value. We have to locate our own hidden treasures and further cultivate them.
If you are concerned with increasing your livelihood or recognizing your own worth (for your simple wellbeing or for what fruits are possible from recognizing your worth), a deeper treatment of the second house can support you in understanding how this area of life uniquely operates for you.
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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.
