Today, I have been giving 9th house issues extra thought because it's the 7th day of Kwanzaa. The 7th principle of the Nguzo Sabo is Imani (Ee-Mah-Nee), which means "faith" in Swahili. As I reflected today about what faith means to me, I realized that it took a tough Saturn Return for me to reach a point in my life where I no longer consider faith to be a dirty word. When all else failed (and it did - both literally and figuratively), faith is what carried me through my toughest times. The irony of faith is that you can only gain it after it's been sorely tested: "faith is what you have when there's nothing else to hold on to."
As kids, we were taught to blow out candles and make a wish, put our teeth under our pillows and wake up richer, wait for a fat man in a red suit to come down our chimneys with presents for us if we're good, pick up a penny for good luck, pitch that penny into a wishing well and all of our dreams will come true. And I believed all of those things.
Until they stopped coming true. I blew out birthday candles and wished that my parents were no longer separated. But they remained apart. I put teeth under my pillow but didn't get any money. I specifically asked Santa for a Cornsilk Cabbage Patch but what I got was a mop-haired Cabbage Patch (that turned out to be a collectible item). Time after time, my wishes didn't come true and I begin to lose faith in what I was taught to believe in.
I became that kid who told all of the other kids that Santa Claus wasn't real. "If you don't believe me, then look in your parents' closets! Stay up late and you'll see your parents putting your presents under the Christmas tree!" I bet my friends that if they didn't tell their parents about their missing teeth, they wouldn't find any money under their pillows. I was deconstructing fairy tales left and right. And I was always correct. I learned that all I had to do was analyze anything long enough and I could always spot the flaws, the smoke and mirrors, the wizard behind the curtain. But each time I was able to spot the lie, I was simultaneously destroying my ability to have faith in anything...
Where does our faith (or, in my case, lack of faith) come from?
We can find all faith-related issues in the 9th house of our natal charts. This is the house that deals with "Meaning of Life" questions, including religion, politics, spiritual/universal/human law, higher education, foreign travel, ethics, etc. When we get into debates and start using words like "should", "shouldn't" and "must", we are arguing from our 9th house point of view.
I have Sagittarius rising. In a Jupiter-ruled chart, my 9th house is extremely important and is a major part of the answer to the question "What is my life purpose?" Having Saturn in Virgo in my 9th house highlights this even more. As children, Saturn represents our teachers and our parents. As we become older, Saturn symbolizes our inner voice of reason, sense of righteousness, the "God" principle, employers, etc. In other words, Saturn represents inner and outer authority.
Saturn in Virgo in the 9th house places ultimate faith in facts, knowledge gained from practical application and previous experience, and what can be proven and felt by the 5 physical senses. Saturn in Virgo couldn't care less about the 6th sense. The ruler of my 9th house is in the 8th house of other people's values and resources and...our 6th sense (the 8th house rules metaphysics). My Saturn in Virgo is sextile my Cancer Sun in the 8th house, along with my Mercury (communication style, mental processing, lower thought) and Jupiter (faith, values, higher thought) conjunction in Leo - a broad-minded, yet somewhat naive, sign. In plain English, I have the tools to integrate my 6th sense with my sense of practicality, which I will need to get through my crises of faith. But first I must learn to have faith in all of my senses.
It would be an understatement to say that I was devastated when relatives and people I considered to be family lied to me at such an early age. What may have seemed like little "white lies" to them were examples of how I cannot trust in what appears on the surface. That I had to uncover the truth by searching out the facts on my own jump-started a lifelong pattern of disbelieving what others tell me until I verify it for myself.
I wasn't raised in an organized religion but I was exposed to many people's various beliefs. At home, my mom taught me that religion and blind faith was for the weak-minded who couldn't reason their way out of a paper bag. Every time I expressed a belief in a higher power or wanted to attend church with a friend, I felt her disapproval of my intellectual development. However, my dad showed me how he finds solace in his faith as a Muslim (9th house Saturn in Virgo sextile 8th Cancer Sun) without pushing his faith onto me. At school, Pan-Africanist, meat-is-evil, whitey-is-the-devil rhetoric was shoved down my throat until I believed it or else. As I grew older, I began to shed some of these opinions that others held so dear while holding on to the ones that were proven correct or workable for me. This process of opinion elimination is an ongoing one for me (my 9th house Saturn in Virgo squares my Mars in Gemini in the 6th/7th house).
As an adult, I still delight in imagining the infinite possibilities (1st house Neptune in Sagittarius) but my 9th house Saturn in Virgo keeps me from diving off of a cliff with wings made of air. Grounded faith is my happy compromise.
How do you define faith? What do you have faith in? How has your faith been tested? How are those experiences tied into your 9th house?
Related posts:
Random Rhyme & Reason: "I Don't Believe in Fairy Tales" (a poem)
Random Rhyme & Reason: Gotta Have Faith
