House of Bliss

What do children, play, gambling, love affairs, and creativity all have in common?

For one thing, these are all themes related to the 5th House of Astrology. An astrology chart, often represented pictorially as a circle, shows the position of planets and other celestial bodies at any given moment in time. The circle is divided into 12 houses, of roughly 30 degrees each, totaling 360 degrees of zodaical territory. What this means is that each planet or asteroid finds itself located in one of 12 houses. The 5th house is my favorite and happens to be where my Pisces-Sun finds its home in my own birth chart. So, I decided to write about it this month—which, by the way, is a very 5th house thing to do: To follow your bliss.

Before I’m accused of circuitous arguments, though, I need to introduce the question again. Why are activities such as child’s play, creating art, gambling, and romance grouped together in an astrological house in the first place? Or, stated another way, what is the 5th House really about? What is its essence?

Jeremy Neal, life-long astrologer and blogger (http://chirotic.wordpress.com/), once said that astrology is about pattern recognition. I believe it was he who also advocated for distilling such patterns and themes to their essence. If you are at all interested in Astrology, it would be a worthwhile activity to pause and answer for yourself the questions posed above. What do these 5th House activities have in common?

To begin with, the 5th House is about taking risks. Gambling is the most obvious example of this, though we are not talking only about such concrete illustrations of risk. Taking risks in life involves moving through our fears and walking into unknown territory. It is about moving toward the unknown, even though it may be scary. It is about desiring and sometimes acting on that desire even though we cannot predict or guarantee or control the outcome. When we can do this, really do it, we usually discover a sense of joy.

I recently had the pleasure of witnessing the following scene:

Two children, about 4 and 6 years of age approached a large, ground-level water fountain located in the middle of an outdoor shopping center. It was closer to a park-like setting, and the fountain was a landscape feature, not a drinking fountain. The sun seemed to be blessing the fountain with its abundant light, so that the water glistened with its own joy.

The fountain consisted of about forty different spouts located on the pavement in the shape of a circle. The various spouts would give life to their respective eruptions of water according to a host of patterns that would repeat over time. Every third spout would erupt with a certain height of water spraying into the air, while every forth spout would remain silent, and every fifth erupt slightly after the third with a higher column of water. Suddenly, the pattern would change, over and over again, until all the spouts were operating at full blast creating an explosion of water that had the effect of liquid fireworks. Meanwhile, the two children, fully-clothed, found their way into the fountain and were squealing with delight. They seemed to love the unpredictability of it. And they were totally in the moment—not thinking about the previous pattern of water or what they ate for breakfast that morning, and not needing anything specific to happen next. They were not worried about their dad putting an end to their fun or the fact that their clothes were wet. They were staying with their desire in that moment, and found what I can only describe as pure bliss.

This is the 5th House incarnate. It’s about being in the moment, letting go of our expectations and our need to control the outcome, saying yes to our desire, and following our bliss. All of this involves risk, and being open to hurt or to disappointment. Children do this well. Love affairs jolt us into this space. Creativity requires this attitude—art moves through us, we do not control it.

As the two children were enjoying their shared moment of eternity, another younger girl—wearing what looked to be an expensive, brightly-colored dress-- approached with her mom. I’m not sure if it was spoken directly, but it was clear that this girl was not allowed in the fountain. Her momentary sad look broke my heart. There may have been very good reasons for this. In life, we cannot always follow our heart’s desire. Still, as a 5th House person, I was devastated for her. Regardless of the reasons for her specific prohibition to enter the fountain, what this leads me to think about is how often we shut down our 5th House attitudes for no good reason at all. I remember, back in the 7th grade, thinking about how ridiculous it was that my friend and I would get kicked out of class for laughing. I could understand wanting to remove us from the classroom so as not to disrupt the learning, but it was how upset some adults seemed to get that I could never fully understand. Why not celebrate such laughter?!

In any event, I think we are a culture of people who for the most part live in the 6th House of work and routine much more than the 5th House of Risk and Bliss. Everything has its place, which is part of the beauty of astrology. We may just be a bit off balance. So, whereas the purpose of my writing this is nothing other than the joy I experience in writing, I would not at all mind if it has the effect of inspiring someone to follow their version of bliss. And this is another lesson of the 5th: When we follow our own desires, it is not only good for us, but also for those around us.