First thing, you exist.

That’s strong, that’s powerful, that’s Angular, that’s First House.

Succedent Houses are Houses that come next.

Planets located in the second house are following those that are located in the first, in primary motion, that is clockwise.

These planets will rise next.

The Second house is a Succedent one.

You exist, and now you are hungry

You want food, you want money

Cadent Houses are Houses that fall over.

(form latin cadere, to fall)

Angles are peaks. After any summit comes decline.

After angular you fall into cadent.

That’s clockwise logic, aka Primary Motion. It’s worth repeating.

The IC is an anti peak, a reversed MC so to speak

The cadent house that falls after this anti peak actually starts climbing.

It’s the third house, aka House of the Goddess. The Moon is happy there.

She is a mirror as you know.

Of course Houses don’t move. At least not literally.

Houses are like stables.

A stable, is it a building, or a team of race horses? Or a team of race cars?

Angular, Succedent and Cadent Houses, understood as teams of planets and signs, race clockwise, in daily motion. It’s more like a procession than a race actually.

Planets placed before the Sun in this procession are called Oriental. (This is notion that emphasises once more the importance of how things move)

In this procession, the First house comes first, the Second succeeds, the Third comes next but the Third is also preceding the Fourth team, falling away from the angle that the Fourth is reaching.

However, in a natal chart, all motions are stopped in their tracks.

A chart is a snapshot, a frozen moment. In a chart, the Houses, like the signs and planets are fixed. Houses get activated anticlockwise by transits or progressions. Thus, again, the First comes first, followed by the Succedent second, the Third precedes the Fourth and the Fifth succeeds to it etc.

Now, this doesn’t deny the symbolic value of planets moving in primary motion, ascending through 12th, 11th and 10th houses, then declining and setting at the 7th place and so on.

We can perfectly look at things from various points of view.

To sum it up: the names of the Houses (Angular, Succedent, Cadent) describe the movement of the planets (and signs) contained within them in primary motion, clockwise.

The meaning of the houses is in great part derived from the highlights of this movement: planets (and signs) rise, culminate and set, they ascend and descend, day after day.

However, this clockwise movement is crossed in the opposite direction by the movement of the same planets moving in secondary motion, anticlockwise through the signs of the zodiac.

It’s worth meditating, because cosmic movements and life on earth reflect each other…

Jean-Marc Pierson

I am an astrologer. Yes I do read charts, and I teach. Here is the homepage.