posted September 17, 2008 12:48 PM         

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...When we examine a birth chart we see from the interface of opposite houses that contact with others are all essentials to wholeness and well being. In the first house, one is 'looking out' to the 7th to search for a special 'other'. From the 2nd house one measures resources and self worth through the reflective experience of the 8th house. Every 'subjective house' - from 1 to 6, has its counterpart in the 'objective house' opposite, from 7 to 12.
The line from Ascendant to Descendant called the Horizon separates two distinct areas of life experience and relationship embedded in the meaning of these hemispheres. The 1st and 7th houses define the Horizon and are where we most clearly focus on the exchange between the solitary self and intimate relationship with others.

The 1st house is about the experience of coping with the world at large. It connects to the idea of 'persona' - the part of the personality comfortably exposed to the world, and in some ways a mask behind which to protect the vulnerable inner self.

By polarity, the 7th house is where that vulnerability lies and represents that which is least exposed to the world. Here is where parts of the self are not revealed except in intimacy with another. In the complex dynamics of 1st and 7th house polarity the 7th house acts as a place for the "shadow" components of the self.
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