“Every building is built with many different stones. However, each one depends on the other, so much so that if only one of them moves, the entire building suffers. And if any were defective, the structure would be imperfect.” `Abdu’l-Bahá (1844-1921)

The sixth house of a person’s birth chart constitutes a particularly technical, crafty, or bureaucratic house, as it is the natural house of arts and crafts (as much as the tenth of the throne or the seventh of marriage), that is, where materials are drafted and manufactured and the office worker prepares and organizes the official documents that will serve procedures; where we sit in front of the computer interpolating and transposing, crossing lines and changing chapters. It is a kind of slavery or servitude that requires a certain skill or technical mastery and a rigorous observance of the principles that govern or rule things from the servant or slave, secretary or employee, translator or proofreader, thus granting the hygienic habit that fructifies the processes. This region of the chart masterfully cultivates the composition and informs about the native’s dexterity or skill, that is, for technical arts, those implying the manipulation of pieces and ingredients as it involves the study of the mechanical structure of the whole (metabolism). We know that comprehensive or complete knowledge of a phenomenon depends on the cognition of the parts that constitute it and their relationships with each other, from which follows the compositional and administrative characterization of this House, its relationship with the organizational processes of the objects, whether on a biochemical level (e.g. the order of carbon atoms and bonds in general according to the molecular orbital theory) or mental level (e.g. syllogisms, linear or strictly logical thinking). Thus, among the technique of the art or the art of the technique that the House entails is chess and cooking, grammar and musical or poetic composition, both of which, contrary to a popular belief, are governed by rules particularly strict in structure, not the sole inspiration or dialectical creativity of Venus, which, must be said, in Virgo can become exceptionally engineering.

As we know, the sensitivity or fragility of any type of procedure or organic structure is predicated on the fact that any defect, even minimal, can disrupt orders and be disastrous. In this case, for metabolic processes (disease) or thought (prejudice or monomania). This is the reason why this region of our chart is particularly sensitive to malefics, and even more so if they present affliction. Saturn (restrictive), Uranus (disruptive), Neptune (chaotic and endocrine) or Pluto (necrotic and deadly) can destroy or considerably affect the processes of our metabolism here (intellectually, however, they usually provide light for some analytical tasks or careers such as physics, chemistry, or mathematics, among others).

That said, would we find that the meanings of a sign (Virgo) extend to those of the House beyond what is expected (unlike between planets and Houses or between planets and signs)? Although there is reluctance on the part of some to recognize the scope or true implications of the maxim “As above, so below” (Hermes Trismegistus), there is, in fact, a more satisfactory explanation of the structural character of the psyche of personalities such as Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Leonardo Da Vinci, Umberto Eco and Gordon Ramsey bring light to this house.

NOTE. This does not mean (as recipe interpretations of contemporary Western astrology in Latin America might lead some to think) that other placements have not contributed to the result, as no planet can ever produce, by itself, what only the joint action of all can (see a future official publication: The Astrological Delineation Procedure. Can Niels Bohr Complementarity Principle be Overcome in Astrological Interpretation?). Put another way, this does not mean that a musical composer or chess player, linguist or engineer cannot arise without some goodness in or from the 6^th House. Just as a person (or several) can contract the same disease in many different ways, the same talent or evil can also be produced via different astrographical compositions (one hundred writers or one hundred serial killers do not and cannot share the same birth chart). In the case of these particular individuals, among others, said region of their charts fully explains (id est, beyond the rest of contributing placements) their intellectual orientations (in the case of Ramsey and the hyper-genius of Vivaldi, even more if we were to use a quadrant model instead of a simplified chart model).

Image credit: Freepik (article cover slightly adapted)