Let’s talk about the hidden houses—these are the houses that don’t make a Ptolemic aspect to the ascendent. These are houses two, six, eight, and twelfth.

When we look at the houses, all the meanings of the houses depend on what we’re able to see from the vantage point of the ascendent, which is the point that decides the first house. The hidden houses are houses that we are not able to see or acknowledge. They’re hard houses.

Houses two and eight literally end the first and seventh houses, which means that they put us in our place. These are the accountability houses. They show us where debts are owed, which those are money, time, care, or sex debts. Planets that show up in those houses will be planets that are interested in talking about accountability. Oppositions between houses two and eight disturb our assumptions around who owes who.

The accountability houses are hard. The money system we live in is not really made for accountability. Capitalist systems of accountability, of debt tracking, often work against us. Your reading of the second and eighth houses will change depending on who you’re reading. Financial privilege can mean that these houses are about investment and financial oppression can mean that these houses are about debts. There are also accountability systems that are not about money but about accounting for behavior and support and time. The second house is how accountability affects us. The eighth house is about how it shapes our relationships.

The sixth and twelfth houses are about abolition. The twelfth house is traditionally associated with asylums and attics. Asylums and attics symbolize enslavement (in a plantation house, enslaved people lived in the attic). The sixth house is about labor.

The twelfth house is about the systems that we want to abolish. The sixth house is about the systems of care that we want to build. These two houses work concurrently. The twelfth house is not just about external systems that we want to abolish—it’s about abolishing systems through which we define our own independence, freedom, and identity. That’s why Sun in the twelfth house people might not feel like they can know themselves fully—because so much of their self knowledge is about abolishing the systems of identification that make them up. The sixth house is not just about labor in a workplace—it’s about what we care enough about to spend time on.

The hidden houses are about accountability and abolition. They are about self transformation. They surround the horizon points because accountability and abolition change you and the roles you play. These are hard houses because our freedoms are privileges that are shaped by incarceration and the lack of accountability.

Houses two and six also trine the tenth house. Houses eight and twelve trine the fourth house. In astrology, the triplicities (houses or signs that trine each other) are different parts of the same thing. The hidden houses are the places where our environments change us. The houses that surround the fourth and tenth houses (houses three, five, nine, and eleven) are more pleasurable because it’s easier to dream about changing the world than changing ourselves. The hidden houses remind us that we can’t change the world unless we account for and abolish the ways in which we are complicit in our environments.

Transits to the twelfth and sixth houses are hard because they will be transits that point out things you take for granted that are experienced as deeply violent to your surroundings before you are able to make decisions that change things or have the resources you need to build new futures. These transits are about unlearning but they’re not about just sitting alone and reading a book. They’re about making sure that you have what you need to make the changes that you need to make when you go through your angular transits. A lot of the time, these transits will be about losing or quitting things. These transits are about grief.

Transits to the second and eighth houses are also hard. These transits will be about accounting for the changes that you made during your angular transits. You get feedback during this time. You’re told if the changes that you made disturbed the right connections. These transits can also be a time of deep support. People hold you accountable when they believe that what you are doing is real work.

The hidden houses are houses that are deeply important. You can’t really have change or change yourself without them. They shape the horizon into what it is. They’re also houses that unsettle and are houses that never feel settled precisely because they’re here to do the work of unsettling you.