Your Ninth House In Astrology Determines Your Sense Of Adventure

POV: Your friend asked for your birth time once and can now predict your major life events with scary accuracy. They knew precisely when you’d have an epiphany to go back to school. They saw your travel plans coming way before you even knew you wanted to broaden your horizons. What kind of sorcery is this, and how do you tune in? Familiarize yourself with the houses in astrology, and you’ll be graced with all kinds of cosmic foresight. For intel on topics like education and foreign travel, you’ll want to get acquainted specifically with the ninth house in astrology.

If you often find yourself turning to the stars for a deeper understanding of life, it’s likely that you’ve got some ninth house influences in your birth chart. But first, what are the 12 houses in astrology? As Camila R. Quintero, LCSW, a licensed psychotherapist and professional Vedic astrologer, previously told Elite Daily, “Each house signifies a certain aspect of your life.” Think of the planets as the subject matter, the signs as the attitude, and the houses as the place. Collectively, the 12 houses are meant to embody everything a person experiences throughout the journey of life, with each house representing its own little snippet.

The ninth house is known as the “house of philosophy” and encompasses a person’s higher beliefs and wisdom, but also reigns over long-distance travel and other related themes. When you picture the houses sitting in a circular natal chart, the ninth house is naturally the opposite of the third house. The first six houses deal more intimately with you, while the latter half explore your relations to others and the beyond. Here is everything to know about the ninth house, according to astrologers.

How Do You Know Your Ninth House In Astrology?

Everyone has all 12 houses in their birth chart, with a zodiac sign for each. To see which sign and planets (if any) are in your ninth house, you’ll want to use an online birth chart calculator. You do need to know your time of birth to get the house details, as their lineup is based on exactly what time you were born. A mere date and location will only get you as far as planetary placements through the signs.

Next is where things get a little weird. There are multiple methods of calculating how the houses lay out across the signs, following the first house (aka the rising sign). Each system yields different results as far as which sign is placed in which house. The two most commonly used are called Placidus and Whole Sign — generally, when you see astrologers talking houses on TikTok or you employ an app or website to pull your chart, it’s one of these two methods in use. For full control over how your chart is computed, choose a chart calculator that offers the option of selecting your house system, like Astro-Seek.com.

So, what’s the difference? Placidus (often the default with chart calculators) is a bit more complicated than Whole Sign. This method is time-based and tracks the apparent movement of the sun across the sky. The division of the 12 houses looks like 12 unevenly sliced pie wedges on the circular chart. Some houses will only take up a tiny sliver, while others can stretch across multiple signs, and it’s possible for some signs to be skipped entirely.

In Whole Sign, the house wedges line up exactly with the zodiac sign wedges. It’s easier on the brain and the eyes. It’s also more consistent and predictable: The signs line up after the first house in order. For instance, someone with a Scorpio rising sign (the first house) would always have a Sagittarius second house and a Capricorn third house using the Whole Sign system.

There’s no one “right way” to do it as the houses are man-made, unlike the constellations and planets. It’s worth noting that astrologers don’t typically recommend Placidus for those born at extreme latitudes, especially if you’re new to astrology. These charts can end up looking all kinds of skewed and confusing.

What Is The Ninth House In Astrology?

As professional astrologer Taryn Bond puts it, the ninth house is often referred to as the house of higher meaning. “It’s what gives you a sense of understanding of something more,” she tells Elite Daily. “It governs higher education, philosophy, publishing, someone's greatest professional achievement, [and it’s] the act of writing a book — the act of putting your energy and dedication for a long period of time into something and then eventually mastering it.” It’s also about striving toward something, Bond says. “It could be striving towards enlightenment, or it could be striving towards that Ph.D.”

The ninth is also the house of new experiences and exploration. Where the third house speaks more to mental voyages, the ninth is about going out and discovering. It’s physically traveling to foreign countries and immersing yourself in the new language and culture. “[The ninth house is] any new experiences that blow open your perception,” Bond explains. “Anything that makes you realize how limited your perspective was before ... It opens your mind.”

Not only does the ninth house rule international travel and foreign affairs, but it’s also about teaching and education. “It's the house of religion and spirituality, but specifically organized schools of thought,” Bond adds. While the eighth house also has spiritual indications, the two houses express it differently. The ninth is not a house where a person would be “secretly doing deviation in their bedroom” as the eighth house might indicate, Bond explains. Rather, “the ninth house person is trying to rally someone or organize a religion or create a sense of community around a shared belief system.” There’s a quest for meaning and a desire to share discoveries with others.

Take a look at your ninth house in your birth chart. What sign is there? Do you have any planets present? Are there any major aspects happening? By discovering the implications, you can start to understand your worldview. “You can understand what you feel as far as spirituality and religion and philosophy,” offers Dalanah, a traditional Hellenistic astrologer of the Moon Matters astrology podcast. “You know, ‘What do I think about higher-level pursuits? What do I think about continued education? What do I think about life?’ It's the philosophical questions.” Say you have a mutable sign in your ninth house, then you might be more open to different forms of philosophical or spiritual thought — whereas if it’s a fixed sign, you could be more set in stone when it comes to your worldview.

People who are into astrology often have personal planets in the ninth house, which can signify a natural curiosity about the meaning of life. Physical exploration through travel is also highlighted for these people. “Someone who has a ninth house that's super strong or super interesting can also be someone that might have experienced a move to a different country at an early age or travels a lot ... or they could be a teacher,” Bond offers.

The sun is said to have its “joy” in the ninth house, meaning it’s happy to be there. If you have your sun in the ninth house, it’s illuminating your higher-level thinking. “You could muse all day about philosophy and ... astrology, all of these higher-level concepts,” Dalanah tells Elite Daily. “The mundane does not belong in the ninth house.” Having luminaries like the sun or the moon here can also indicate a person whose identity was shaped by religion — for example, a person who grew up in a religious household and then went on to explore their own idea of spirituality.

Dalanah notes that having an “empty house” or “open house” (a house with no planets there) doesn’t mean you’re not a philosophical person or don’t care about education or travel. “If you have an open house,” she says, “you just look at where the ruler of [the sign] of the ninth is and go from there,” Dalanah tells Elite Daily. Translation: Say you have Pisces in the ninth house. You’d look at the planetary ruler of Pisces (Jupiter in traditional astrology and Neptune in modern), and see which house it’s in to get a further description of your ninth house.

Which Sign Rules The Ninth House?

Just as there is a variance when it comes to choosing a house system, so too is there in modes of astrology. There’s modern, traditional, Eastern, Western — you get the idea. In some practices, it’s common to attribute the energies of a zodiac sign to that of the numerically corresponding house. So the ninth sign, Sagittarius, is said by some astrologers to rule over the ninth house.

Both the ninth house and the sign Sagittarius carry a lot of the same ideas, including philosophy, higher education, and spirituality. But Bond reminds those new to astrology not to limit their understanding of the houses to the associated sign. “For example, the ninth house is the house of publishing,” Bond says. “But when people are thinking Sagittarius things, they're typically not going to say publishing in the first five keywords. But we can't think of the ninth house and totally forget about publishing because we might totally misinterpret how a ninth house is expressing itself for someone,” she explains. This little catch is a major reason many traditional astrologers don’t subscribe to this approach.

In some strains of astrology, however, the idea of matching up the signs and houses provides additional meaning. In Vedic astrology, an ancient practice in Hinduism, the houses are thought to be linked to the signs, elements, and four Hindu goals of life. “Each house is separated into these four goals,” Quintero tells Elite Daily. “So the first, fifth, and ninth house, they relate to our Dharma, or what we're meant to do in this life, who we are, [and] our careers ... This is what our purpose is in the world, how we show up in the world, [and] how we take action,” she explains, noting that Dharma relates to the fire signs, and therefore the fire houses. Sagittarius, she says, is part of this first goal of life and is “represented by the ninth house.”

Transits To The Ninth House

So, back to the whole idea of predicting when you might gear up for your next big adventure: You want to be looking out for ninth house transits. Whenever a planet moves into the sign you have in your ninth house, it’s inviting action in these areas of your life.

“If planets are transiting the ninth [house], it could be a time of opportunities to get outside your comfort zone,” Bond says. You could literally be doing some traveling during a ninth house transit, “but there's something about an opportunity to expand that just might fall in your lap,” Bond adds. You might decide to follow a dream and sign up for the necessary classes to make it a reality. “A lot of times people do start writing novels or finish novels during ninth house transits,” Bond continues, “or [they] find a publisher.”

“And it's not just travel,” Dalanah says of ninth house transits, “but it's also foreign people. And that doesn't mean that you have to be the one traveling to meet someone foreign or to encounter a foreign culture or do something that is just foreign to you.” It might be that you meet someone who is from a foreign culture, she adds. “You may even have a complete change of heart and a shift in what you believe,” Dalanah continues.

The nature of the transit will depend on which planet is involved. For example, with a slow-moving planet like Jupiter, you’ll feel the effects longer. “You might go on a three-month trip in a different continent — that's very Jupiter, expanding the ninth house of international travel,” Bond explains. With faster-moving planets involved, like the moon, you might just focus on these areas of life for a quick spell, but long enough to inspire action of some kind.

As a house related to the fire element, the ninth house is passionate and energetic by nature. Learning about this aspect of your birth chart can be an enlightening experience that reveals your relationship with the existential and the exploration of the unknown.

Experts:

Taryn Bond, professional tropical astrologer practicing synthesis of evolutionary, modern, traditional, and intuitive techniques rooted in a humanistic, soul-based astrological approach

Dalanah, professional Hellenistic astrologer and host of Moon Matters astrology podcast

Camila R. Quintero, LCSW, licensed psychotherapist and professional Vedic astrologer