When we come to the 7th house, we cross an initiation threshold that puts us now face to face with the Other in the world and engage in shadow dancing. Thus far, we’ve moved from the developmental territories of identity (1st house), resources (2nd house), voice/learning (3rd house), home/family (4th house), self-expression (5th house), anchoring in daily life (6th house), and have now arrived in the sphere of interpersonal relationships.
If you think of the astrological houses from varying layers of depth of experience and understanding, the seventh house is where we are tested and beckoned to shadow dance with the other as they enter our lives. At the first level, this is the place where we encounter one-to-one and equal (hopefully) partnerships. These are the contractual and/or committed relationships from a spouse, closest friend, your therapist to a business partner. It’s also the territory where we relate to those in the inner circle of our lives.
This isn’t the space for acquaintances but for folks who are vital in our lives – one way or another. The relationships in this territory are committed and contractual, consciously or unconsciously, spoken or not, but they’re about the dance of equals. This is the territory that we learn to dance with the other, not one that is either ‘above’ or ‘beneath’ us, as in how we deal with our relationships with our parents, siblings, other family members, and in the sphere of work, with those who are our employees.
Shadow Dancing & Open Enemies
Interestingly enough, the 7th house is also the territory of our open enemies – the ones we know and deal with. This is the territory of the spouse, the divorce lawyer, the business partner, and the business agreement with its non-compete clauses. Unlike the hidden enemies that live in our 12th house, the 7th house’s open enemies illuminate how our SHADOW is PROJECTED out onto the world and is mirrored back to us through them.
The fact that it’s where we project both our shadow, as well as our inner gold onto others. As we know, what often attracts us to others is that they carry some of our inner gold with them, an element of our shadow. Because the shadow isn’t only the negative things but also the positive and creatively affirming aspects of ourselves that, due to our history and culture, can often be relegated to the basement of our psyche. In the dance with the other, enemy or attractor, we often reclaim lost aspects of ourselves.
The 7th house is the rich territory of reclamation and rediscovery because we will find lost, unclaimed, and undiscovered aspects of ourselves through our profound encounter with the other. Think about the healing and insights you may have encountered in therapy with a life coach and your best mate. Not to mention the transformation we undergo when in a committed romantic relationship.
It’s in this territory that we encounter the foreign aspects of ourselves, and we have to do the work of integration and assimilation of these aspects. It’s no wonder every marriage, business partnership, and client relationship has its gifts and challenges because, in the vessel of the 7th house, both parties are involved in this alchemical dance.
Patterns of Relationship – It’s not you; it’s me.
This is also the sphere where we learn about the types of relationships attractive to us and what shadow dance we’re called to do. It shows how we join, break up, and deal with equality and competition. The 7th house is where in the shadow of light, as the sun sets over the horizon, we find ourselves wrestling with the projection the other is carrying for us. In terms of day and night, the 7th house represents the setting sun, the twilight time when light and shadow play tricks on our rational mind, inviting in more of our imagination.
When it comes to our closest relationships, there’s an element that is forever hidden in twilight shadows, and we can’t shine the sharp daylight on it, for it may ruin the magic of this partnership. No wonder this is the place of relationships with legal contracts and agreements with detailed and boundaried delineations. Still, things can fall through the cracks, unconscious (shadow) aspects rise, renegotiations and amendments need to occur, or they fall completely apart, and a breakup happens.
If one wants to understand the patterns of their relationships in life, romantic, business, and otherwise, we have to be very curious about what is being revealed through the images mirrored back to us from our projected self. You can’t fix the other, but you can start understanding what you need to reclaim and integrate into yourself. We can also look to our early relationships with siblings, family members, and childhood friends to see how these have informed our adult relationships.
It’s known that when you’re in bed with your romantic partner, you’re not alone in the room. There are four other folks there with you: your and their parents. The parental marriage and familial relationship patterns come down to you and your partner as the backdrop melody of your conjugal dance. This can also be played out in our business endeavors, where our business partner and clients can bring into the room their relationship patterns to dance with our own.
Self & Projection
Projection happens all the time. It’s a natural part of being a human and the grit of every relationship. As mentioned earlier, we also project our inner gold onto others. The attraction we feel for another signals that something about it is ours to reclaim. Ideally, in time the other would return to us our inner gold. But we also need to be ready to receive it.
But most often, our more charged examples of projection involve using it as a defense mechanism to protect us from the challenging aspects of ourselves, be it feelings, thoughts, desires, and motives. Instead of acknowledging these, feeling and integrating them, we project them onto the other, who can become the carrier of these unintegrated aspects of self. Spouses are the critical, judgmental, difficult ones. Our business partner is undisciplined, irresponsible, and indecisive. Our clients or our therapist is stingy, flaky, or anxious. These are simple examples, but if you stop and notice, often you’ll be able to see how these challenging feelings have a link back to you. This is not to take responsibility away from the other, who may be difficult, but what matters here is that we do the awareness work to see what part of their personality serves as a hook for that unintegrated part of our projected shadow.
Business is deeply personal.
The saying “It’s not personal, it’s just business” is a fallacy. Business, work, and our livelihood are deeply personal. In every office, company, factory, or corporate headquarters, we see unresolved personal issues walking around under the guise of professional titles such as managers, CEOs, and employees. Perhaps your boss is more than just your boss; they also carry your projection of an unhealed relationship with your father/mother. Your blind obedience to your manager may reflect a dynamic of assuaging your mother’s volatile personality. You carry a co-worker’s weight in a project, which could reflect your wounded relationship with a sibling. You stretching yourself thin to answer a client’s demands can be reflective of how you didn’t feel you were worthy of love by your parents.
Of course, the more painful examples stand out because they are the ones that lead us to see the therapist or coach. But these relationships can often serve as the crucible of healing. They can help us learn about boundaries (remember the contractual aspect of this house), find our inner gold through the attraction we feel for the other, and rewire the pathways of our relational patterns.
That’s why work, how we weave our purpose with our livelihood, is a pilgrimage of self. This is a charged environment of risk, with ideas and elements that need to make themselves manifest in the physical world, and involves us showing up as an adult in all relationships that inhabit this pilgrimage. And yet, nothing spurs us towards dealing with our shortcomings, healing, and integrating splits parts of ourselves than navigating making a living while having to depend on others to achieve what we need.
The beauty of the astrological chart with its 12 houses is that we all have to deal with the joys and challenges of each of these territories. You can’t do away with an area of the chart. Even if you brush it away for a while, it always comes back to be reclaimed. We can function for a bit, like a wonky wheel. Still, through a crisis, an inner stirring, and even an illness that spoke of our chart, representing an area of our lives, comes knocking to be reclaimed and integrated into our lives. As illustrated by the birth chart, the psyche always moves towards wholeness. The repressed will always return.
Purpose, livelihood & the 7th House
Regarding purpose, livelihood, and the 7th house, we can’t do our work in the world if we don’t engage in a relationship. Be it the business partner, the supportive (or not) spouse, or the clients/customers that come to our business. They all require that we better understand our relational patterns and do the necessary healing.
If you’re wondering about your work in the world, your sense of purpose, and your livelihood, looking to the 7th house can help you better understand how your relational patterns can either hinder or help you on the path. If you’re a business owner, perhaps a therapist, coach, or healer, looking to the 7th house can help you better understand what types of clients are attractive/attracted to you and what healing and transformation are taking place for yourself and them.
If you’re starting your business, look to the 7th house to get a sense of what your prospective clients are picking up from you, especially the unconscious elements you’re projecting. It may be a good idea to do some exploration and healing on reclaiming some of these projections so that you can meet your clients with a healthier boundary and a better understanding of what is yours and theirs.
Photo Credits:
Main image: Claudio Schwarz
Subsequent images: Zach Rowlandson, Mario Heller, Tusik, LinkedIn Sales Solutions, and Vardan Papikyan via Unsplash
