Imum Coeli anyone?

For caridwen

I'm not sure that the IC angle or 4th house cusp represents the circumstances of our death in terms of the cause, the process, the type of death. Many of the older texts ascribed that to the 7th house cusp and planets in the 8th house.

Several things to keep in mind:
** Venus often plays a role in death-related charts as a "balancing" factor.
** Jupiter often relates to the remembered qualities of the deceased.
** There are many kinds of deaths and the symbols are often specific to the person and not generally the same for everyone.
** The IC is both a timing indicator and a family-security environment.

Edited to add. . .
Had to cut things short for an appointment. Relative to the IC as a "timing" indicator, transits and progressions across this angle typically coincide with an end of something and the start (sometimes) of something else. The "what" of what will end or how it will end can be determined (broadly speaking) by the rulership-house of the planet crossing the angle and the "how" by the nature of the planet itself.

I'd like to add to what was well-said about family-security issues later. When one wants to read a chart relative to a narrow topic such as "what was your early family life like" one doesn't look at the whole chart. You would, in this case, look at the "family axis or the MC-IC axis. You would look at the planets in or near those angles, and at the houses holding the planets ruled by those two opposite angles to see how family life would be expressed.

Now, some would say that this is much like what you would do if examining someone's career. True. Think about it. What brings security to a family? The status and success of the bread-winner. Change jobs and you often end up changing homes. Change your home and you end up changing jobs quite often. A similar polarity exists with the ASC and Descendant angles. Change your appearance and your manner and you will find your relationships changing. Changes in a relationship show up in your manner and appearance.

Dave

Horary astrology refers to the fourth house as the 'end of the matter' and I can see that this might be interpreted as 'death' but as Dave points out above, 'death' was more often seen as the opposite of birth. Birth is symbolised by the first house and therefore the event of death can be seen as being the polar opposite, the seventh house. Just to add to the confusion, death is often assigned to the eighth house, as one of the three most unfortunate houses in a chart.

The fourth originally referred to the father and then through extension to the family, ancestry, home, domestic circumstances and psychologically the inner self. The association with family, security and home also provides the link to real estate, fixed property and treasure.

Tensions between work and home could be read from the tenth, fourth axis and the positions and strength of their rulers, though again other factors shown by other houses may well be relevant (such as the ability to earn money and the relationships with partners).

For Minderwiz

It's nice to see you back here -- visiting? Returning to frequently posting? In any case, I hope all well for you and your family. Dave

Thanks for the welcome back Dave!

I had serious blood pressure issues earlier in the year involving hospitalisation. I am now getting back to normal having shed about 37 pounds in weight.

I'm hoping to keep dropping in and making the odd comment, especially as my astrology's got a bit rusty and needs a bit of a polish!

Spooky Destiny

caridwen said:

The circumstance of our birth, our traits, predispositions and the circumstances of our deaths? Isn't that spooky?

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What is also spooky is palmistry - your destiny shown to you on the palm of your non-dominant hand and your life so far shown on your dominant palm.

balenciaga said:

What is also spooky is palmistry - your destiny shown to you on the palm of your non-dominant hand and your life so far shown on your dominant palm.

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My non dominant hand says that I am supposed to become super famous like royalty but so far nothing has happened, I still have to make the bed, sweep the leaves and do the shopping, ah well maybe in my next life.

Basics about the MC and IC axis

When we are born, we start to experience life at a specific time and location. This makes us UNIQUE. No one else will have the geographic alignment with the sky that we have unless born near to us at the same general time. This geographical alignment of our location also locates the planets-of-the-moment in a certain alignment to our MC and ASC angles, an alignment that we call "houses."

However, there are also other considerations that make us part of the social construct in this world, in our community and our family. All of our birth planets are in signs that are shared by others born on the same day or near the same period of time (modified by only the rapidly moving Moon, for example). This gives us a COMMON place with others of our generation within the world.

Now, lets get up front and personal. At birth, we are shaped by our home and our relationship to our mother and secondarily to others around us. The family structure sets our root-values and our sense of what we can be in this life. The MC angle is generally "south" for most of us northern hemisphere folk. It is what we look up to, the sky above, the weather, the clouds, the stars that look so far away and yet so intriguing. The IC is to the "north" or at our feet, and represents what we stand upon.

A couple of years ago an Australian member of AT was confused about how the chart supposedly "switched" around for the souther hemisphere. She had read some books about how to construct a chart, part of which involves using the opposite sign and angle as a "MC" in order to get the house sign and cusp points correct. I ran several charts that each had the same MC but different ASC angles based upon northern and southern latitudes, all along a line that ran south from Japan. Of course all the MC-IC's were the same and the ASC angle varied a bit due to latitude changes -- but all the arrangement of the charts were essentially broadly similar. The sun still rose in the east.

So, back to the core issue. The parents shape the family and the child's place in the family. Depending upon cultural, work, time influences, on point will represent the father, the opposite point the mother. It is likely that this changes as we age and start to perceive the roles of parents differently than when we were babies or toddlers. Family status is, in many ways, defined by the work and wealth of the family, oftentimes affected mostly by the father. But, a mother that raises her family according to strong values while living under difficult circumstances can equally define the focus and wealth of the family.

As we grow and become adults, living more and more on our own, we take the status of the family and modify it or adopt it to define our goals. Thus, we define our MC. We live or react against our learned, early family values, thus defining our own core values. As we experience life, and as we experience transits and progressions across those angles, we also change and adapt to life. It is possible that we might and change and adapt right out of our charts -- isn't that an interesting thought. I haven't seen much evidence of that, but I have to assume that its possible.

Once we have these "pictures" of our uniquenss and commonality in place relative to how we lived our family life and moved onward from that family space/time, then we realize that the MC-IC axis has many roles that spring from fundamentals. The chart influences us. We influence the chart. Everything in astrology is both cyclic and polarized. Dave

willowfox said:

My non dominant hand says that I am supposed to become super famous like royalty but so far nothing has happened, I still have to make the bed, sweep the leaves and do the shopping, ah well maybe in my next life.

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Don't give up hope, Willow! There is still time for you to become famous - even famous people had to sweep up the floors in the days when they were unknowns!