Dear Madame,

Something’s always bugged me about the 5th house, and maybe you can help me understand it better. I associate ‘fixed’ houses with stubbornness and tenacity. And you’ve said the fixed signs are often about survival questions. So I wonder how the 5th house, which is a ‘fixed’ house, ended up being the place where it’s all happiness and joy and kids playing?

I see how Leo fits the ‘star quality’ that might lead to joy, but honestly, I’m not sure how this match fits except when we use it with modern entertainers. Can you explain why the 5th house is supposed to be ‘fun’?

— Ann

Dear Ann,

You’ve sent me a great question. Here’s the easy answer: aspect.

Classical astrologers (we’re talking B.C.E.) said Venus ‘joys’ in the 5th house, calling it the ‘House of Good Fortune.’ Why? Well, in part, because the 5th house makes an easy aspect to the ascending house. If a person were sitting in the 1st house, the reach to the 5th requires no turning or twisting in order to make the connection.

The relationship is easy. Pleasant. So there’s the simple answer to why we call it ‘fun’. Venus is surely the source of most pleasure, isn’t she?

But there’s more! First, it’s essentially important when you’re talking about any house to know that houses are NOT signs: the sign Leo is NOT the same as the 5th house. Thanks to some 20th century astrologers who created a little mnemonic learning device called the Astrological Alphabet, they’ve been conflated.

To be fair, astrologers who taught it (like Zipporah Dobryns) made a point of saying a ≠ b regarding houses and signs, but you may have noticed that people tend not to read carefully. How much the 5th house represents the activities and character of Leo is much debated in certain quarters, with some astrologers pointing out that older descriptions of the sign Leo hardly fit the profile of someone you’d invite in for Yatzee Night.

Still, someone with a slew of planets in the 5th house may seem to come off like a Leo, even if they have no planets in Leo. So what gives?

If you follow the ancient Egyptian practice of orienting the quality of the houses by following the motion of the Sun — that is, clockwise motion — the 5th house succeeds (follows) the 6th house, and precedes the 4th house of rootedness and grounding. And because the 6th house is cadent (that is, it ‘falls away’ from the descendant — the strong horizontal line on the right-hand side of a chart), the 5th house begins to look like the spot where, (after you tripped in the 6th) you scrambled back to your feet with a flourish. Ta-da! Meant to do that!

The 5th is where you regain your balance after your fall in the 6th. It’s a space of stabilization, but also uncertainty. Where is this leading to next?

Here are some purely personal musings. What would it look like if you met someone who was persistently attempting to right themselves, but can’t seem to get on with the next step? You might call them ‘fixated’, yes? (We actually draw the ‘fixed’ idea from the fixed stars — stars that move so slowly as to appear permanent — associated with the original constellations assigned to the Zodiac.)

So according to the Egyptian system, the 5th house is where, after we stumble, we don’t have to fall. The 5th house is not a fixed house. Leo is a fixed sign — it is associated by order of the ecliptic with a succedent house; that is, an intermediate house: a ‘safe’ zone where things are neither beginning nor ending (or turning into the next thing). If the Sun represents the principle of Ego, this is where the Sun/ego dusts itself off and sorts out what just happened. It’s a blessing.

However, what if you read the houses counter-clockwise? Then the 5th follows (succeeds) the 4th house. If we apply a bit of developmental psychology to the matter we can say, for instance, that the 5th house of play and experimentation succeeds the 4th house of family orientation and security.

Here we’re on more familiar ground. The idea is that we need the grounding of a home, or family, in order to go out into the yard and play. Anyone who works with children knows that having a safe home base (4th house) leads to a willingness to take risks, to ask questions, to wander off a bit and see what’s going on.

Then the 5th house becomes the pleasant Venusian garden of play, improvisation, imagination and experimentation. Like musicians rehearsing for a concert, this is where we rehearse for more public performances in life. The paradox is that for all that uncertainty to happen, one needs a secure (a ‘fixed’) setting with clear boundaries in which to mess about.

Consider the implications of that idea. What would happen if one had an insecure 4th house identity? The successive house might bear more of a burden in compensating for that. Perhaps play would be too serious an adventure, as that person tries to make up for what they don’t get at home. And on it goes.

The point is, in both of these models, the 5th house of fun is a place of recovery and pleasure. What you call ‘fun’ depends on the rest of the chart. A more secure person will laugh off a stumble if their Solar Self’s in good condition. A child will playfully adopt imaginary characters in games if they have a secure understanding of their basic identity. A baby will explore the living room happily if she knows Momma’s not far away. And (keeping this seasonal) some adults love getting the crap scared out of them, if they know the haunted house is just a safe zone of ‘pretend’.

And there you go — to the 5th for fun!

— Madame Z