Point Five

THE PERSONAL THRESHOLD

Action and reaction are always a projection of the selfhood into its experience, and personality might be defined as that consistent organization of the being through which it emerges to establish its basic horizon in life. This is IDENTITY, to be recognized as it exercises itself continually now in one way and now in another, and as it is encountered commonly in its familiar environment. It is interpreted in the horoscope through the FIRST HOUSE, and attention in sixteen-point analysis is given in the usual manner to the PLANETS it contains, the place of its LORD and the SIGN and degree on its CUSP. The term ASCENDANT identifies both the mansion and the clockwise-facing boundary, and frequently if not too happily it refers to the latter as a sort of PLANETARY entity. In actuality it is the threshold in CIRCUMSTANCES that provides a fundamental anchorage in FUNCTION for everyday experience and thus enables the self to maintain itself in its practical and established distinctiveness.

In consequence the RISING SIGN is an invaluable INDICATION of the acquired skills and social maturity evident in the superficial mannerisms, group loyalties and recreational proclivities. The sun by SIGN and in comparison gives the astrological INDICATION of the more strictly physical and evolutionary structure of the body and its refinements. The GREATER LIGHT thus identifies WILL or [353] purpose as the most straightaway representation of roots going back into the night of time, and so and in simple lineaments the skeletal formation and all the characteristics of inherited appearance and wholly inherent tendencies to act and respond. The moon by its zodiacal place reveals the more uncompromisingly personal and largely subconscious resources, or what might be termed the psychic and more blindly instinctive side of the makeup. These factors of selfhood shown by the LESSER LIGHT have their outward and visible manifestations for the principal part in the set of the musculature and the irrational prejudices and eccentricities.

Every individual as he is conditioned by CIRCUMSTANCES through his development to adult responsibility is apt to begin favoring traits and potentials indicated fundamentally by RISING SIGN, sun SIGN or moon SIGN, and to a varying extent to neglect the other two fundamental expressions of his character. There is nothing in the horoscope to indicate in which of the three ways such an emphasis is likely to go, but the NATIVE'S actual appearance comes to reflect the tendency and in consequence to give a very valuable clue to the direction and extent to which a chart's INDICATIONS have been shaped by the tenor of the self-expression.

What the NATIVITY does show at times in connection with the sun, moon and ASCENDANT in relation with each other is a species of proclivity like the NATURAL DISPOSITION, except that the latter as determined by QUADRATURE describes the outer or practical approach to experience whereas here the determination through TRIPLICITY identifies the wholly subjective NATURAL RESOURCEFULNESS or [354] manner of coming to inner or psychological focus in response to any external situation of the moment. As the individual mechanism of alertness it must not be confused with the SCOPE OF EXPERIENCE, and when it is found its value in DELINEATION is in the opportunity it gives the astrologer to encourage the NATIVE'S effective capacity for a concentration of skills and potentials when events make any sudden or unusual call on him for his act or reaction.

NATURAL RESOURCEFULNESS is indicated in a horoscope when the ASCENDANT, sun and moon are placed by TRIPLICITY so that the situation of one is incompatible with the other two. In the case of Prince Charles the sun and moon are in WATER and EARTH respectively whereas the ASCENDANT lies in FIRE. This stress of FIRE reveals the effortless adequacy with which in all probability he will be able to rise to any emergency, and in competent astrological counselling he would be coached to depend on his gift for making the precisely proper move in each particular instance. His mother has the same INDICATION and the same gift but by comparison his granduncle, the Duke of Windsor, has a sun and moon in WATER and an ASCENDANT in AIR. The TRIPLICITY providing the NATURAL RESOURCEFULNESS here shows the high flexibility in character that proved of the greatest value in Edward's wide travels as the former Prince of Wales, and accentuated his breadth of interest in people of every sort and station. His unexampled popularity stemmed from his almost electric response to every situation until he became king and found himself boxed hopelessly in the limitations of the crown. The Duchess of Windsor with sun and moon in AIR and an ASCENDANT in WATER has a NATURAL RESOURCEFULNESS [355] in an unquestioning self-completeness that served her unfailingly in her long struggle up from relative insignificance, and through one disappointment upon another, until she could find her ultimate challenge in her climactic marriage. Stanley Baldwin, the prime minister who officiated at the abdication of Edward, has an ASCENDANT in AIR and sun in FIRE, and a moon in EARTH to establish a NATURAL RESOURCEFULNESS. His accentuated practicality of character was well revealed in his handling of the whole matter of Edward's renunciation of the crown.

The absence of this INDICATION has no particular significance, and it makes no great difference whether it is established at the ASCENDANT, or by the sun or by the moon. What alone is important, when it is found, is that the NATIVE understands that in any emergency he may rely on his inherent adequacy, his unlimited flexibility, his boundless completeness or his instinctive practicality. The distinctions are totally subjective, or subtle to a point that almost defeats specific exposition, but each mode of NATURAL RESOURCEFULNESS if actually experienced is unmistakable in the possession of it.

The FIRST HOUSE primarily indicates the general anchorage of the personality in CIRCUMSTANCES, and charts the convergence of the everyday factors that form a continuous succession of momentary frames for the individual IDENTITY establishing itself in experience. In the horoscope of Prince Charles the HOUSE contains Pluto, which as the APPLYING or dynamic factor in the TRIGGER provides the NATIVITY with its whiplash to action and to definiteness of attitude. The LORD of the FIRST HOUSE is the sun, which with Pluto forms the TRIGGER, and thus [356] the personal threshold with this emphasis becomes of exceptional importance. With the sun in the FOURTH HOUSE the prince in his IDENTITY serves the home or the cradling womb of his personality, and in consequence there is a complete horoscopic stress on the strong self-stimulating and most curious self-pyramiding of himself as he makes himself at once the creature and the master of the circumstances in which he finds himself.

In this natal map the RISING SIGN, embracing the ASCENDANT or the CUSP of the FIRST HOUSE, is the SIGN of ASSURANCE, and this reveals the necessary outer representation or immediate face his personal existence must have for its self-fulfillment. There cannot be even the slightest intimation of any self-doubt. The zodiacal degree in which the ASCENDANT is found is symbolized by an old-fashioned woman and an up-to-date girl. The symbol suggests the extent to which he must, in his own person and through a positive manifestation of character, give significant emphasis to the linking of the old from which his literal heritage has come and the new that is coming forward under the aegis of Pluto. In some uniquely dramatic fashion he must become all things to all people.

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