Barleywine
Thirteen asked me to post a response to the following dialogue in this forum:
Originally Posted by Barleywine
There is also an astrological spread that corresponds to the attributes of the 12 houses of the mundane horoscope. Thus with the 3rd House (traditionally occupied by Gemini, which is ruled by Mercury) you can bring in suggestions of nervous disorders, problems with motor skills, communication difficulties like stuttering, mental health issues with the "lower," or "concrete," mind.
Originally Posted by Barleywine
I've typed up a response and will post it there. What I described is not strictly a "zodiac health spread," but in fact includes all "departments of life" (as befits the emphasis on the 12 houses rather than exclusively on their ruling signs) including health considerations as a factor in each house. I suspect you've seen the approach before.
This is basically an extension of the "Life Reading By The Horoscope Method" described in Eden Gray's "Mastering The Tarot;" it's described as not practical for divining the answer to a particular question. Although she identifies the horoscope houses according to the signs that rule them (1st/Aries, 2nd/Taurus, 3rd/Gemini, etc.) and talks about mating the cards placed there to the meaning of the ruling signs, the keywords she gives for this purpose are exclusively derived from the house meanings themselves, not from the signs. Also, the keywords given are rather meager, having not benefited from the explosion of astrological insight that occurred later in the '70s. (I have the feeling her astrological knowledge wasn't comprehensive at that time.) Note that while there are no physiological functions and characteristics included in her keywords, every house has some corporeal aspect to it (for example the 1st House concerns, in part, the native's physical appearance - a related health focus could be the outwardly visible condition of the skin, hair, countenance or posture; the 2nd House has to do with the native's sense of physical well-being and stamina; the 3rd house with everyday mental hygiene, basic motor skills, perception and cognition, the speech faculties; and so on through the horoscope). Cards in these houses can be read as developmental or progressive influences that, if harmonious in nature and "dignified" (sharing an affinity for the meanings of the houses and ruling signs they reside in), would reflect "smooth sailing," with few hardships in those "departments of life" (including few health difficulties) and possibly some opportunities if the cards are particularly potent, while cards that are dissonant in nature and "ill-dignified" (poorly aligned with the energies present in the houses) could be read as potential pitfalls to pay close attention to and actively try to mitigate (with numerous shades of meaning in between those two extremes). This can become much more intense if you have a reliable natal chart for the querent, since you then have the actual natal signs on the house cusps (as well as "intercepted" signs, which is where I suggest reading any reversed cards in an affected house since the connotations are similar) and the presence of natal planets in the houses and aspects tying them in to some of the planets (and consequently the cards) in other houses. This opens up an enormous window for synthesis and interpretation. It does, however, require some astrological savvy as well as fluency with the tarot.
Originally Posted by Barleywine
There is also an astrological spread that corresponds to the attributes of the 12 houses of the mundane horoscope. Thus with the 3rd House (traditionally occupied by Gemini, which is ruled by Mercury) you can bring in suggestions of nervous disorders, problems with motor skills, communication difficulties like stuttering, mental health issues with the "lower," or "concrete," mind.
Originally Posted by Barleywine
I've typed up a response and will post it there. What I described is not strictly a "zodiac health spread," but in fact includes all "departments of life" (as befits the emphasis on the 12 houses rather than exclusively on their ruling signs) including health considerations as a factor in each house. I suspect you've seen the approach before.
This is basically an extension of the "Life Reading By The Horoscope Method" described in Eden Gray's "Mastering The Tarot;" it's described as not practical for divining the answer to a particular question. Although she identifies the horoscope houses according to the signs that rule them (1st/Aries, 2nd/Taurus, 3rd/Gemini, etc.) and talks about mating the cards placed there to the meaning of the ruling signs, the keywords she gives for this purpose are exclusively derived from the house meanings themselves, not from the signs. Also, the keywords given are rather meager, having not benefited from the explosion of astrological insight that occurred later in the '70s. (I have the feeling her astrological knowledge wasn't comprehensive at that time.) Note that while there are no physiological functions and characteristics included in her keywords, every house has some corporeal aspect to it (for example the 1st House concerns, in part, the native's physical appearance - a related health focus could be the outwardly visible condition of the skin, hair, countenance or posture; the 2nd House has to do with the native's sense of physical well-being and stamina; the 3rd house with everyday mental hygiene, basic motor skills, perception and cognition, the speech faculties; and so on through the horoscope). Cards in these houses can be read as developmental or progressive influences that, if harmonious in nature and "dignified" (sharing an affinity for the meanings of the houses and ruling signs they reside in), would reflect "smooth sailing," with few hardships in those "departments of life" (including few health difficulties) and possibly some opportunities if the cards are particularly potent, while cards that are dissonant in nature and "ill-dignified" (poorly aligned with the energies present in the houses) could be read as potential pitfalls to pay close attention to and actively try to mitigate (with numerous shades of meaning in between those two extremes). This can become much more intense if you have a reliable natal chart for the querent, since you then have the actual natal signs on the house cusps (as well as "intercepted" signs, which is where I suggest reading any reversed cards in an affected house since the connotations are similar) and the presence of natal planets in the houses and aspects tying them in to some of the planets (and consequently the cards) in other houses. This opens up an enormous window for synthesis and interpretation. It does, however, require some astrological savvy as well as fluency with the tarot.
Since I haven't used this spread in quite a while, the above is mainly a faint recollection of what I recall on the subject, bolstered by a quick wade through a couple of books. Unfortunately for a more mundane interpretation of the astrological houses spread, much of the phenomenal outpouring of astrological wisdom (including that regarding house systems) that came out of the '70s had a scholarly psychological bent, making it challenging to piece together the physiological attributions of the houses for use with a tarot health (or any other more practical) life reading. Consequently, for many people the sign meanings in this area often stand in for the houses they rule, which isn't really correct for something billed as an "astrological houses spread," and emphatically not if you have a good natal chart to work with. There may exist a more recent comprehensive work on the subject of "houses and health," but I haven't been paying attention. Time to google it, I suppose.