The Tenth House in Astrology

The Tenth House is where you receive your coveted lifetime achievement award.  What's your idea of success?  

It's how you're drawn to make a name for yourself.  Who do you look up to?  These mentors are a guide, to your own long-range plans.  

The Tenth shows how you build your reputation, or not.  It's the path of achievement and honors, that is hard-won.  Capricorn rules this House, and that reveals that it's the weighty, substantial matters in focus here.

It's been called the House of World Leaders, since it's a stance of planning across time, and for things that will last.  You can liken it to planting seeds that will grow, and you might not be around to share in the fruits.  

It's the sphere of family legacy, ancestry, and roots.  You'll find here multi-generational goals, and things passed down from one generation to the next.  It's to do with the inherited position in society, or with the desire to climb the ladder in some way.

This is an earth (element) House, and you'll find it on your birth chart.  If you've got planets here, they color your plan of action, as you go after your goals.  

The Work House 

The earth Houses are called the work Houses — they are the Second (Taurus), the Sixth (Virgo) and the Tenth (Capricorn).  These are to do with your hands-on engagement with the material.  

While the Sixth House defines how you make a living, with jobs and income streams, the Tenth House is about your life's work. It's what you look back on, as your legacy in the world. The tenth house is also associated with the Midheaven (on the tenth house cusp).

It's an expression of your public persona, how you're seen as a figure on the world stage. Of course, it's you as a big fish in a small pond, too, like a prominent member of your small town.

The dynamics found here show how you fulfill, over time, your destiny to become an authority in some area. Saturn's mastery is hard-won, and the rewards of this house come through careful progress over time.

If your Sun is placed here, you're extra ambitious and assert yourself as a leader.  The Moon here makes you a warm, emotionally expressive leader.  You're apt to be drawn to the "caring" professions, like holistic healing, child protection or being director of the local animal shelter.  

The Material World 

With its Capricorn signature, the tenth house deals with the material realm. The insights in this house show how you act in the real world, how you get things done. It's an angular House, meaning it's one full of cardinal initiative.

Because that often requires an inner authority, the full expression of this house is a power that is bedrock solid. It is achieved from experience, wisdom, perseverance and a cumulative history of success. Are you an expert? The sign and planetary action in this house show what fields you're likely to build well in.

The tenth house is associated with father, in the sense that he's a figure that traditionally coaches you to take your place in the world. But nowadays, that could also be the mother, or any other significant family figure or mentor. The authoritarian in your life teaches the lessons of the tenth house, and how to claim your own power.

This house is one marked by worldliness and has an impact on your lasting legacy. We're talking the enduring impact on society, by your actions and what you create. It could be monuments, books, buildings, theories or the shaping of young minds (as a teacher).

It's where you find the guiding signs toward achieving what you came here to do. You could call it the career destiny, how you make your mark.  The Zodiac sign of your Midheaven shows the way you go about doing just that.

House of: Saturn and Capricorn

Life themes: authority, career, Midheaven, life's calling, status, legacy, father or mother (guiding influence), mentor, monument