Like all cadent houses, the sixth indicates dissipation of the energy of the planet in which it is located. This is as if the planet needs to constantly make a lot of effort to show results, a process that is "tiresome" for the stars found there.
This is one of the points that cannot be seen by the Ascendant, a blindspot, and this can lead to an exaggerated behavior of the planets positioned here - because what is not seen is not well controlled. The Ascendant represents the body and life of the native, and the sixth house, being in this blind spot, fails to support the significations of the Ascendant.
The Greek name of the sixth house is Kake Tyché or Bad Fortune/Luck. The most direct significations of it are not very positive: illness, injury, pain, and affliction. Besides the harm done to the body, it is associated with work in its sense of labor: not in the sense of being perceived for what one does in the world and the glamour built around career these days, but the daily effort, of toiling and earning a hard earned living. This is why it is a house cited with reference to slaves and small animals in ancient times, figures who were at the service of others. This is where the tireless Mars rejoices: the warrior rejoices in being able to be aggressive and even to cause bad luck. If the Ascendant is the body, the sixth house is "that which attacks the body" without our control.
This sixth house association is related to Pathos, "that which falls upon" or happens without the person's control, a term that would later develop to the notion of pathology in contemporary medicine.
Clearly, these experiences can be felt as afflictions and difficulties, yet pathos and suffering can be distinguished. Pathologizing experiences can be the most palpable way of experiencing what is beyond rational-egoic control, for it is through the wounds (an opening or pore) of human experience that the gods enter our lives.
Comments