If you are inside when you are reading this and you can, go outside. Even just for a moment. If you can’t go outside, this will work but it will likely not be as satisfying.

Once you are outside, if you are able, tilt your head back. Look for the most central, highest point in the sky. Whether daytime or nighttime, the gloaming hour or twilight, brushed with grey or clear as an open door, find the furthest highest point. Reach with your eyes for that impossible place. Spend as long as you can gazing up at it. Be apprehended by the altitude. Hook yourself into the height. Let this point pull on you like the strings of a hot air balloon.

Feel it tug your pupils, your lips, your heart, lifting you to the summit of heavens.

Be exorcised by the elevation. Possessed by its depth. Delivered by its daunting apex. When you’ve had enough, gently and carefully draw the sky down with your chin back towards the horizon.

You just set yourself upon the 10th house. The highest place.

Was it comfortable to place your gaze upon it? No, probably not. Neck strained. Irises gaping. Brow scrunched. Thoracic spine buckled over itself. Suddenly aware of how small you are at the center of that impossibly far point above. And yet, there is quite likely if you are reading this, a great degree of respect for the spaciousness of it all. Perhaps awe. A sense of reverence. And amidst those feelings of course, bewilderment.

Astrologers will throw out key words for every house to help students and enthusiasts grasp their meaning. The houses are not complicated but their significations are many and broad-stroked, painted under completely different socio-political context than the one in which we live today. Still, the core principles reign.

When we talk about the 10th house, you will often hear astrologers use the following key words or phrases:

Career. Profession. Vocation. What you are known for. Where you are most public.

These words are all true and still barely graze the sky’s vaulted ceiling.

It is easy to rest on the superficial laurels of the 10th house (of most of the houses actually). But if we want the boons of any domain of life, staying on the surface will not reap rewards. So to occupy the themes of the 10th house, which generally deal with reputation, level of success, and the spirit of that which you want to achieve, we need to thoroughly flesh out the meaning of this house. And also look at how to understand what is happening in your personal tenth house. Let’s start with the first piece.

The 10th house is one of supreme visibility.

It is easy to spot though tough to look at. Unlike the 9th or 11th houses which flank it, the 10th house requires you to intentionally strain a bit while you look UP. You must take the initiative to set yourself upon the peak of the sky. You must take the action to be there and make the effort to maintain your place. Some ancients used the word praxis because the 10th house inevitably shows “what one does.” Antiochus associates this house with techne, which translates to skill, technology or trade.

There are lots of things that we do. But not everything that we do is something that we are known to do.

The 10th house will not describe every job you have ever had or will have. But it will describe the larger themes of your vocational reputation, as well as your willingness and way of attaining it.

The 10th house is challenging to look at and even more difficult to reach. The 10th place in ancient Greek was associated with the Midheaven, which we’ll get into later. For now, note that the Greek word for Midheaven, koruphe, means “top” or “peak”.

Thus, the 10th house is the mountaintop of the natal chart.

The sky climbs ever around the earth, planets and stars groping and shifting as if working a massive bouldering problem. Anything in the 10th house has already sent it.

The 10th house is the part of the sky that has crept over the horizon, forged ahead through the liminal shadows of the 12th, pressed through the throngs of the 11th and arrived, at the incredible vista of the heaven’s summit.

The 10th house is the part of the sky that has crept over the horizon, forged ahead through the liminal shadows of the 12th, pressed through the throngs of the 11th and arrived, at the incredible vista of the heaven’s summit.

The tenth house looks down upon the first (house) with a commanding glower. The tenth house says “try me” in a way that compels you to follow through on the dare.

Summits are stunning but they are also fearsome. Once you have risen to the top, you have far to fall.

The 10th house is therefore a place where you may experience vertigo. I can’t tell you how many people I see with strong 10th house placements who have achieved a degree of success in their chosen field only to forego it for the allure of another crest. Or people who have worked tirelessly only to be blind to their very success. And many others who would rather do away with the recognition for which their followers would virtually kill, because they know the pains and pitfalls of constant witnessing. And still others who have done a 10th house thing only to realize it is not their tenth house thing and must set about recovering what that is.

Lots of people live a life with multiple career paths and decide to try a new mountain. But they need to find a way down first. If we keep the bouldering metaphor, you can very carefully work your way down to base with lots of practice in elegant step retracing. You can also fall intentionally, if you are close enough to the ground. Or you can recklessly release your grip and hope for soft earth.

As I mentioned above, the 10th house is a place of visibility. Whatever manner you decide on to come down before a new crest, you will be keenly self-aware of whoever might be watching. Because the 10th house deals with the things for which we become known. How many times have you gone to a gathering and upon being introduced to someone you are asked “So, what do you do?”

It is woven into our culture to measure worth by our work.

And the measure is either:

(1) how famous are you? or

(2) how much money do you make doing that thing?

It is worth noting that the 10th house forms a superior trine to the 2nd house of finances. Trines are harmonious so this aspect ties these places together as strong allies in a natal chart. We might say that doing 10th house things tends to bring alignment with access to resources.

But the 10th house also forms a trine with the 6th house of employment, subordination, and physical health. These things are elementally aligned but the 6th house actually has the superior position relative to the 10th. Your physical capacity determines the path and degree to which you can follow through on your 10th house intention. Because the 6th house sees the 10th house from a cadent place below the horizon, it does not hold the same power over the 10th that the 10th has over the second, but it is still worth examining. But within the schema of derivative houses (which I will get into later in my 10th house guidebook), the 6th house is the 9th house from the 10th. So the 6th house also acts like a guide or a teacher for 10th house activities.

So how do you know, what is your 10th house thing? What should you do with your one wild and precious life?

When people come to me to ask this question, I look at the 10th house along with two other integral elements of the chart. I’ll be releasing articles and eventually guidebooks on each of those other things as well ;).

There’s an unwritten principle in astrology that if you see three different signifiers that all point to the same thing, there’s a good chance you’ll find it in the life of the native. So the 10th house is one part of a critical triad for describing your life’s work. My aim is to give you all of the tools to understand the entirety of this triad so you can set aligned goals, take clear actions and find success in your chosen path. This article is the first step. If you don’t want to wait for these materials, you can always book a session with me and we can start your 10th house exploration right now.

The tenth house in particular, requires your intentional examination, exploration, appraisal and attention. Once you have found the thing and put all of your effort behind it, trekking down the mountain for the sake of scaling another feels much less enticing. Though, depending on your tenth house, a whole mountain range with a series of mini summits may be in order (I’m looking at you Virgo and Sagittarius risings, among others!)

So it is important that we flesh out the 10th house and all of its possible significations to help you find the most accurate description of your particular summit(s).

The beautiful thing about any house in astrology is that it contains a plethora of meanings.

Some people have really clear 10th houses because they have planets which live there or a prominent planet which rules it. Other people, like me, have no planets in the 10th house but a series of placements, rulerships, and aspects which act like a map to the top.

The 10th house is bonded to hierarchy.

The 10th house forms an overcoming square to the 1st house. This is considered an aspect of both action and superiority. Squares (90° angles) in the chart create tensions that compel us to act. Overcoming squares indicate that the “overcoming” part of the chart has power over the other. Sort of like it’s looking down or pressing upon the other.

The 1st house in the chart represents you. The relationship between the 10th house and the 1st house is important because it describes the relationship between your vocation/reputation and you. Every single person has a tense aspect between their 1st and their 10th. So for every single person the 10th house signifies the crest of your life mountain, shows how and why you climb it and describes the nature of the challenge of that climb. And if there is something not working in the realm of your work, eventually the 10th house will have its way.

This is not just a cultural phenomenon because this structure of a natal chart was designed over 2000 years ago in an entirely different socio political moment. It applied then and applies now. The square aspect between the natal 1st and 10th houses represents the arc of our growth and the things we become known for in our lives. There are parts of life that are both extremely tenuous and wildly rewarding. The really big things like these tend to fall in the 10th house. They are daunting. We want to do them and we are afraid to do them and it is this tension continues to tug on us ad infinitum.

Because the 1st house represents you and receives a superior square from the 10th, the 10th house therefore indicates people, activities and callings that tend to dominate the life of the native. There is an inherent power dynamic between these houses. Sometimes the 10th house can literally show up as your boss. But it can also show up as something that commands you to act in a way that is aligned with your life path - like the activity that you have to do to be your own boss. This is the spirit of the thing you for which you are the foundation.

Using the concept of derivative houses, if we turn the chart so that the 10th house sits in the place of the first, then the 1st house becomes the 4th from the 10th. The first is the home, foundational structure and parentage of the 10th house.

As I mentioned above, the 10th house also indicates visibility.

Sometimes people become so well known for their 10th house activity, that the person represented by the 1st house gets a bit drowned out.

We see this with people who reach degrees of fame wherein they are constantly subject to their visibility. They are often pedestaled or idolized as well as followed by people who try to knock them down. Hellenistic astrology in particular is really great at describing fate, things outside of our control. Sometimes the 10th house will describe how one is seen by the public, regardless of what the individual does to shift or control a narrative.

Spending all of ones time in the 10th house can have a dehumanizing effect.

When 10th house people remain visible, they stay difficult to reach. The 10th house is averse to the 3rd house of kin. This explains why people really thriving in the spotlight may have a hard time reconciling relationships to their closest connections. When someone has a strong 10th house activation (in the natal chart or by timing technique), it can be most comfortable to spend time with other 10th house people because they understand the experience of public visibility overshadowing the more personal and private elements of who they are. This is why many celebrities, influencers and other famous folks tend to flirt and find friendship with each other.

When trying to understand your 10th house, there are a number of primary things to look at:

Planets in the 10th house The sign in the 10th house The ruler of the 10th house and the sign and house in which the ruler is placed.

Any aspects the ruler of the 10th house makes to other planets, specifically to the ruler of the 1st.

A lot of people wonder, “why isn’t my career path working?” Or “what am I meant to do in this world?” Or “when can I expect the work I’m putting in to pay off?” Many of the answers to these questions can be found in the delineation of the 10th house or by looking at transits and timing techniques related to the ruler of the 10th house. Especially when these things overlap with additional timing techniques tying in other career significators, we can expect the native to have a particularly eventful moment in the story of their legacy.

It’s also important to note that because the tenth house describes how we get to the top in addition to being at the top, sometimes the moments of notoriety have less to do with transits to the tenth and more to do with the behind the scenes actions that get us there.

Our interest in the 10th house today is very much tied up with our understanding of capitalism.

We love to hate the 10th house just like we love to hate people who earn distinction for their skills.

We struggle to grapple with publicity and we know that being extremely public about our work often means exposing vulnerabilities where it can be torn apart. We all want success yet most of us get stuck sometimes comparing ourselves to people who are standing on their personal summit.

And yet, we also revere them. We oogle a reputation whether good or bad. We love to rip into a girlboss because any woman at the top obviously cheated or sacrificed her values (obviously I am being sarcastic but just noting in case). We salivate over someone’s fall from grace. We rush into the crowds of haters. And if we don’t, we sit on the sidelines with faces full of skepticism, eyes painted emerald with that particular strain of poisonous judgement.

Anyone whose tenth house speaks to you will trigger questions of good enoughness or cringy caveats or shame that likes to lurk in the shadows. It will also call you into conversation with your own willingness and desire to be seen. To step up to your personal version of the podium. Your own relationship with challenge. Your unique compulsory calling. If you are willing to occupy your tenth house, I assure you there are ways to do this without exploitation. There is nothing inherently wrong with the climb up your personal ladder of success.

The beauty of astrology is that it also will affirm to us many a 10th house story that does not align with capitalism’s favorite girlboss.

Sometimes the legacy of the 10th house is to be renowned for our sisterhood.

For our laughter. For our intuition or our tidy organization. For our perfectly textured homemade popcorn and meticulously curated movie nights. For our meme decks and our helping hands. For our collabs and our solo retreats. For our warmth or our honesty or even our pain.

Interestingly, the 10th house and the MC are also often associated with motherhood because the Mother is the visible parent.

The Mother is the one whose belly swells noticeably with her creation. And mothering, as we well know, is one of the most poorly financially compensated and least institutionally recognized (if at all) visible life-paths in our culture. All of this and more plays into our insistent love/hate relationship with the tenth house.

We all want visible success and ideally, we’d like others to have it too. But in practice we struggle to actualize our own and bolster others when gripped by the bonds of cultural conditioning.

To an extent, the 10th house also represents an aspect of the overculture which you might actually revere. It signifies a part of conditioning for which you do actually hold respect. Part of the key to embodying your 10th house story, is making peace with the part of you that desires something interwoven with the toxicity of our culture. You may need to do some poignant reframing. Honest inventorying. Keen moral exploration. Remembering that this desire has roots which precede the era in which we live. The myths embedded in each of the signs, and carried by each of the planets have principled implications and they are rich with nuance. They allow us scrape away capitalism’s toxic debris and see our 10th house with untainted clarity.

Part of the beauty of astrology is in its ability to describe things situated in a time but with descriptors which preceded this time. Your 10th house does not represent a moral question, though knowing it may inspire ethical explorations. More than anything though, your 10th house will describe an aspiration for accomplishment which brings recognition as its hot date. It will describe lustful efforts, masterful stunts, and the specific kind of affirmation sought by them. The 10th house shows you the apogee of your want and how you get there. If you can help it, don’t sit on your 10th house story. Start revealing, writing, and reading it aloud as soon as you can.

If you want to know more about your 10th house, get on my newsletter list below. Book a 10th house consult. And keep your eyes on the prize because there is more on this subject to come - this is just the beginning of our climb to the sky’s limit.

THE SKY'S THE LIMIT : CLIMBING TO THE 10TH HOUSE