MYSTERIES OF THE 10TH HOUSE:Â THE ANGUISH AND DRIVE TO BE SOMEONE
The 10th house is one of the most frequent avenues of discussion in readings because it is connected to status and the ambition and desire to be acknowledged and recognized in society and at work. It is connected to the Sun and naturally at noon the Sun is at the highest point of the sky creating the 10th house cusp or MC in Western astrology. When people do not acknowledge us and our talents, we suffer deeply because we possess a very deep desire to be seen and praised. Every astrological house has its secret anguish but if we do not live up to our dreams to be a someone to be acknowledge and if we settle for a weak position working at Walmart, our life inevitably suffers.
The 10th describes your career, your public reputation, your worldly status. It suggests your optimum contribution to society– the qualities for which you’d like to be admired and respected. The 10th reveals some of this but more particularly the arudha lagna, reveals how others see us—especially those who don’t know us too well. It suggests our reputation among acquaintances, bosses and coworkers, our mother’s book club, distant relatives, strangers too. We don’t care enough about these people to get to know them better. Yet if their opinion of us is poor, it will bother us greatly. We care about our public image. ( We will have to do a long article about the arudha lagna as it is so revealing as to how we are seen in the world.)
Put Rahu in the 10th house and there is never enough attention and praise or status at work and it keeps driving you but you never feel satisfied. We spend a lot of energy fighting around the 10th house. Your intentions are wrongly perceived, your praise is never enough, the criticisms that your receive get blown up in your mind. Get 10 compliments for a presentation and 1 insult and you mind chews on what that one person said for weeks. If you want to be liked, forget it, because at work the Sun is the archetype and everyone secretly takes down the King because no one wants to be burned by the power of the Sun and at some point a snipe or a plot will be hatched to take you down.  Pity the poor politicians and the game of thrones that fascinating us and increases keeps ups glued to the TV. On some level, everyone really does need to take you down in order to fulfill their competitive need to grow. It’s a sad part of the King archetype.
In Vedic astrology there are multiple ways of looking at our life purpose in our chart that are often missed. The sign and planets in the 10th house in our navasha chart (D-9) reveal so much about what we love to do with our spare time which often blends in and becomes our profession. Put the moon in the 10th house in the D-9 or have Cancer owning it and you have to be involved in nurturing, mothering cooking or some other activity connected to the moon.
How do you ensure your expression of your 10th house is a positive one?  This becomes an agonizing question for so many people. Some people are thrust into the family business and that can make life simple and I still think we learn so much from our parents and their talents and work.  Sometimes this is agonizing. There is a deep pull between the 10th and the 4th house between home and work and mother and being in the world. If our 4th house is afflicted and impacting the 10th house, then it may be hard to leave home and get into the world.
The 4th and the 10th  houses are in constant opposition and become a battleground between work and home life—the desire to be safe and feel comfortable and nurtured; the desire to stay home and the desire to be in the world and acknowledged. They become an archetypal core pull of our existence. Put more planets in the 4th house can take down the power of the 10th house if there are fewer there. After facing off with the boss we run home to restore our sense of security before we can come back into the world.
There is an intrinsic connection of the Moon and the Sun to the 4th and 10th houses. The Moon- the mother and Sun the Father. Moon- past lives, Sun the future connection to the soul’s journey. The Moon nurtures and the Sun highlight this potential through our actions.  The journey from the 4th house to the 10th house is from the safety of home out into the world. (Note even if 9th house is father in Vedic astrology, the 10th house is naturally connected to father as the karaka of the 10th house also.)
I find this conflict between the 4th and 10th house fascinating. As a man, I always do better getting out of my home office and being in the world whereas my wife really likes working from home. The past 6 years, I moved into my home office because my wife needed me and it blocked me from getting out into the 10th house and shining in the Sun’s glory at noon in the 10th house. My career took a dive.   I recently moved back into an office and drive to work and somehow it is empowering and at the same time, I long to be home. While Sun and Mars do well in the 10th house because they create drive, ambition and energy to succeed, Venus and the Moon do not as they because they beckon us to the comfort of home and mother and comfort
The 10th House is opposite the 4th House, the house of the mind so our work preoccupies and impacts our mind so much and malefic aspects between the 4th and the 10th or long malefic transits from Saturn or Ketu or Mars if afflicted may create long tensions and restlessness for the mind. If you have malefics in the 4th house like Satrun or Ketu or Mars  or even even Mercury which does not do well there, there is always mental anguish around work with the 10th house aspect.
This is an exhaustive subject that cannot be fully touched in a brief article. There are much deeper issues that come out in Jaimini Astrology about integrating our soul purpose with our career and how we make a living. Many time they are at odds like in the charts of musicians and struggling actors who have to do their art but the work in restaurants to pay the bills.
Enjoy my Career and Life Purpose  reading for a deeper look at your chart.  Starts Saturday, Sept 7th from 12-2 pm CDT on Go to Webinar. Replays for missed classes available.
Sneak preview of the first class at:
THE ASTROLOGY OF CAREER AND LIFE PURPOSE–THE SEARCH FOR DHARMA AND MEANING IN LIFE
