“I Think Therefore I Am”: The Third House
In the first house we were born into the world and claimed our very own goggles. What followed was, in the second house, our bodies and other resources we can call ours that we use to navigate our existences.
However, this navigation requires an education at first. It’s all well and good that I now know I am not an amorphous blob, and that my mass isn’t equal to the mass of the universe; that I am in fact separate from my mother and the rest of the world – but I now need to start exploring things that are outside of me and experience my limitations.
Third house, therefore, is where we are educated about our immediate surroundings and pushed to experience our limitations for the first time. This house is, among other things, the house of logical thinking (as opposed to abstract thinking). Logical thinking helps us learn what a candle is and that if we touch a lit one, we are going to get burnt. So, in other words, the third house is where we learn the consequences of the use of our bodies and other possessions.
The journey of becoming “I” doesn’t only include the education of what makes me “me” – my description includes my boundaries and since boundaries themselves only give half of the story, it needs to include what is “not me”. The third house is not yet the end of the journey of becoming, but its first “social” step where we are introduced to the outside world – what lies beyond our boundaries and our skins. What begins with crawling evolves into walking and that evolves into a stroll in the city and to a trip in our country – and all of these are third house activities.
This is relatively safe socialization (as opposed to the ninth house where foreign countries, cultures and abstract connections come into place) – at first with the mother watching while the baby is crawling and making sure it doesn’t get hurt; after that, taking trips and journeys within our “homeland” and using our “mother” tongue.
Everything else that falls under the umbrella of the third house, then, follows this formula such as our first interactions with others including our siblings and other relatives (except for mother and father – they have their own areas in our charts), our early schooling, short journeys etc. We are free to explore human connections and our surroundings – but within certain safe limits. This is where names of things and then connections between these new things come into play.
A look into one’s third house reveals the way one’s mind works, how one makes logical connections, and how one learns facts. Additionally, it can inform us about one’s early schooling, their relationships with one’s siblings (if there are any) or relatives. It also tells us about the relationship one has to knowledge and facts.
Between identifying our possessions in the second house and forming a solid sense of “I” in the fourth house lies the third house - making this transition possible.
If you want to learn more about your natal third house and/or the rest of your chart, I recommend my Modus Operandi reading. I designed it as an easy to digest entry into your chart focusing on one or two areas of your life. Click here to book a session.