Did you ever have a treasure chest when you were a kid? Or maybe just a little box, where you kept your most prized possession?
I had a carved wooden box that came from an old woman's house we cleaned and prepped for an estate sale. Inside my precious box, I kept my trinkets--little medals I found in old houses, old coins, cool-looking bugs, and my most prized possession of them all, my (stolen) Princess Jasmine figurine.
The Fourth house is kind of like that. It's nostalgic. It holds our childhood, the things we sentimentalize. It holds our treasure "from the bowels of the earth," like the ancients put it. It's a place that holds our family's lineage--their name, glory, and money, if they had it.
Fourth house planets are experienced privately, no matter how fiery their energy. People outside the comfort of your home won't get to see them in action; they're nothing like your tenth house planets, for example.
The sign on the cusp of that house bares a resemblance to our childhood; the messages we received during our formative years about family, about our place in the world, where we belonged, and what we had "in our guts."
I often notice that people who have troubles with their fourth house, its ruler or difficult planets in there aspecting personal planets elsewhere, struggle with self esteem. Now this is entirely a supposition of mine, but I associate our foundation--the 4th house--with self esteem. When we are young, we get a clear message from our parents or caretakers about what kind of love we deserve. And based on that message (or lack thereof), we take ourselves through life repeating the patterns we learned as children.
People with fourth house issues lack something valuable in their treasure chest. Theirs didn't get full during childhood, so they spend the rest of their life continuing to look for something--anything--that will fill it. And ultimately nothing (and no one) can.
We can't go back into our childhoods and heal the wounds of that fourth house. We can't. But we certainly can take a look in there and take stock of what we do have. What's the condition of your fourth house ruler? Are there any planets in there? How's your moon doing? All of these things relate back to childhood and our very basic foundation, and being aware of them helps us know ourselves better. When we truly know ourselves, getting our needs met is much easier.
Photo byJouwen WangonUnsplash