All good stories have a challenge that needs to be resolved, and the astrological chart gives us a very simple way of sorting out those challenges. It all comes down to the opposition. What’s the 2-8 challenge?
Money, Sex, and Power
The 8th House presents you with the possessions, money, and values of other people. From a distance, this can seem innocent enough. But when you start to build a serious relationship with someone (a 1-7 connection), you slowly learn if their values are compatible with your own.
In the area of money, the 8th house can address a few things. It can indicate the financial resources of your partner (business or personal). It can also say something about the combined resources that you have with your partner. Plus, it can represent someone else’s money; most commonly, that’s money that you owe someone.
When you are in debt, whether to a person or a financial institution, you are temporarily (hopefully temporarily) surrendering some of your own power over to them. You tend to have to operate under their terms. Sometimes you can feel okay about doing that; for example, taking on a mortgage might be the only way you can ever own your own home. Sometimes, though, your debts to others may relinquish more of your own power than you care to surrender.
So where does sex fit in? The 8th house is a place where two people merge together, and it is a house where irreversible change occurs. Once you have had sex with someone, you can never reverse the experience. Your relationship with that person has changed forever. Birth and death are two other examples of irreversible change. It is curious that the French call orgasm la petite mort — the little death.
Sex and power. This connection hardly needs any explanation since it is so common in our culture. In film, TV, and social media (and in advertising for that matter), we see many instances where sex equates to power. Oftentimes this has a negative spin, since it assumes we are using that power to place ourselves in a higher position and to put down others. Power, though, does not have to have a negative connotation. Can we not view sex as a way for two people to experience the power associated with merging together?
If you have an opposition across the 2nd and 8th Houses, if you have one or more planets in Taurus opposite one or more planets in Scorpio, or if the nodal axis falls through these houses or signs, you may be especially tasked to work out some issues regarding money, sex, and power.
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