Domicile

What it means

A planet is in its domicile — also called its rulership or its own house — when it stands in a sign it rules. Mars in Aries, Venus in Taurus, the Moon in Cancer: each is at home, in a sign whose nature matches its own, and can act, as the old texts say, like a householder in their own house, with full command of its resources. Domicile is the strongest of the five essential dignities (domicile, exaltation, triplicity, term and face), which describe how well a planet is suited to the sign it occupies.

The scheme

The traditional scheme, set out by Ptolemy, gives the two lights one sign each — the Sun Leo, the Moon Cancer — and then hands each of the five other visible planets a pair of signs, moving outward from the lights in order of their distance from the Sun: Mercury Gemini and Virgo, Venus Taurus and Libra, Mars Aries and Scorpio, Jupiter Sagittarius and Pisces, and Saturn, the farthest and coldest, Capricorn and Aquarius, opposite the lights. The sign opposite a domicile is the planet's detriment.

Since the discovery of the outer planets, modern astrologers give Uranus to Aquarius, Neptune to Pisces and Pluto to Scorpio, usually as co-rulers beside the traditional ones. Traditional astrologers keep the seven-planet scheme.

How it is scored

In Lilly's table of fortitudes, a planet in its own sign earns +5, the highest single score; exaltation earns +4, triplicity +3, term +2 and face +1. Detriment costs −5, fall −4, and a planet with no essential dignity at all (peregrine) is also scored −5. These points describe a planet's quality — its capacity to act well and on its own terms — not how prominent or loud it is in the chart. That is a separate question, of house, angularity and aspect.

How it is read

A planet in domicile is read as comfortable and self-directed: its themes come naturally, are expressed with confidence and are less dependent on circumstance. Venus in Libra may incline toward ease in partnership and a feeling for balance; Saturn in Capricorn toward a patient, practical authority. In a horary question a significator in its own sign describes someone well placed to act, holding the means to bring the matter about.

Being at home is not the same as being easy. A planet in domicile expresses its nature purely, and Mars in Scorpio, for instance, is as fully Mars as it can be — which may be a gift of courage and resolve, or a temperament others find intense.

Because the ruler of a sign is its host, a planet in domicile also receives any planet passing through that sign, which is the ground of mutual reception.

Related

• Exaltation
• Detriment
• Fall
• Peregrine
• Mutual reception
• Chart ruler