My brother is an amazing and talented architect, and recently with our family we visited a beautiful scenic and historic park, a sculptural sanctuary with lush tropical gardens. As I was walking through the gardens, I remembered a documentary I had seen on architect Arthur Erickson, and one of the things that I felt he so beautifully would describe was his approach to his work.
He shared how each building was meant to be unique, because it is in its part of the world, in its unique surrounding, with unique movement and rhythm of nature outside of it; that essentially it wasn’t about creating structures, but for a feeling of nature, alive movement within, so that when people are inside the buildings he had designed, they would feel still a part of nature outside, as if nature is moving within the building. To see the sunlight reflected in particular places, the leaves, the raindrops, the river streams.
To Erickson, the heart, not the head, was the guide to architecture and all his work. He felt it was the greater mystery and something other than our conscious self that takes over in our creativity, and that great buildings are those that move the spirit. It is a rare thing for a building to move the spirit, but when it is created by the heart, heart led, hands heart led also, then the building becomes a poetic thing, a unique making of the heart.
As I was watching about his life, I knew he had deeper spiritual connections to the Indigenous wisdom and through his travels to Cambodia and Asia, which was why his intuitive wisdom, heart and spirit connection, and connection to nature had been shaping so beautifully his work. Spirituality and creativity have always been connected, and our creative path is usually also our spiritual path, one weaves within the other, each exists within the other, and moves us, expands us.
There are many spiritual paths, and for each person it is unique. Expansion of creativity is often the result of deepening of spirituality; and if you call to your mind all creators throughout history, whether writers, poets, musicians, architects, sculptors, gardeners, film makers, the ones whose work still moves people’s hearts and souls are the ones who had deep inner spiritual lives. Through this, they were able to touch the spiritual, and then shape it into the tangible – and into a shape and form that would remain timeless.
The Ninth House
When a person is able to connect to their spiritual self, they essentially come into their true essence, and release their sweetest most natural fragrance – their authentic creative self expression. They become the hands, the eyes, of the ears, the feet and all movement and body of love itself – and they inspire everyone else around them to also come into their true unique selves.
To connect to their inner spiritual self and wisdom and inner truth, we often look to the natal 9th house as the first key. The 9th house is a light house, i.e. it connects to our spiritual body; in traditional ancient astrology, this was called the house of God. This is our highest star we look at in the sky, not the one directly above us as the midheaven, but the one on the side, where it is a quieter more private space, when we enter the temple within. It gives us the direction, but it still allows us our choice whether we consciously choose to walk our dharmic path.
Each of us as individuals has the potential to access the divine, and nurture this connection; to expand in our intuition, inner wisdom, and embody inspired creativity. The 9th house is always connected to Jupiter, but there are also what’s called in traditional ancient astrology Triplicity Lords. For each house of our natal chart, we have triplicity lords, depending on the sign and whether we were born during day or night; and our 9th house too has its set of triplicity lords, which may give you further insight on your spiritual and intuitive development path.
The 9th house, or the House of God, holds within itself everything related to our consciousness expansion: travel, spirituality, higher knowledge, religion, fate, attainment of knowledge from mysticism, philosophy and astrology, interpretation of dreams, and so on. This is the house where we enter to begin our adventurous quest for truth – where we seek to dissolve the boundaries between us, and find the essence of it all, to find the truth, to connect to the divine.
Whether we cross physical borders through travel, or even yoga, or mental ones through learning, or even emotional ones through union with a love bigger than us, through a devotional pathway, it is all about expansion of our perception, which is essentially what spirituality is. With travel and pilgrimage, we enter geographical expansions, with philosophy and higher learning, we enter the mental ones, with astrology, a spiritual expansion.
When we fall in love, in real love and real intimacy, we enter a union, intimacy is about dissolving the boundaries between us to see our true selves. Through yoga also, it is about union, because yoga means “that which joins”, and as we expand beyond our sensory perceptions, and expand further and further out to perceive more and more, beyond just skin, this is yoga, and this is the 9th house.
When we speak of the 9th house wisdom, it is also about discernment, because without discernment one is just lost within the spiritual realms and cannot interpret properly. So the 9th house holds the perfect marriage between intuitive wisdom and real higher knowledge, high perception of truth, because the body too has been purified, i.e. we are now less dense in energy, thus lighter, which is the 9th house and the development of our spiritual body. In the 9th house is also faith, fate, the acceptance of one’s destiny and karmic balance, the conscious choice to walk a dharmic path, transcending the lower urges and ego, so that we become the clear vessel of the divine moving through us and shaping and creating what needs. The 9th house is a marriage between clarity of mind, purity of heart and sincerity of actions.
The Triplicity Lords
For those unfamiliar with triplicity rulers, triplcity is one of the five so-called essential dignities described in Hellenistic and Medieval astrology text, still practiced in Western astrology, which refers to a type of rulership related to the elemental nature of the signs such as fire, earth, air, and water. The three triplicity lords are members of a triumvirate of planets which oversee signs of the same element around the clock. Each triplicity ruler governs certain significations of each house, depending on its place in the sequence of the three rulers.
Fire and air are masculine, yang, and considered diurnal; while water and earth are feminine, yin, and nocturnal. For natives born at night, their natal Moon may become more important, as well as the other nocturnal planets Venus and Mars. For day charts, the Sun, Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter are part of the triplicity lords we look to.
There are many ways to see deeper into someone’s chart, and triplicity lords is just one of the paths. I usually move deeper into the divisional charts, or the more subtle vibrations of the houses as a spiritual astrologer, but today I’ll show you how you may use the triplicity lords through an example.
Suppose your natal 9th house is in Capricorn, and you are born at night. Capricorn is a feminine spiritual path, and its triplicity lords for the 9th house in a night chart are Moon, Venus, Mars.
Moon shows your travels and what may the reason or purpose or motivation for that, or how these may move you and expand you on your paths. Venus shows any spiritual and religious practices, or the eminence that is obtained in them and the form which that eminence takes. And Mars, as the third lord, is a signifier of science, visions, astrology, omens, and the truth and falsehood in these matters.
Next you will look at where these are placed, in what signs, what aspects, and how these weave into the rest of your chart and life’s path, which is shows through your Ascendant. Suppose these connect to your natal 3rd house – well, if the 9th house was the house of God, the 3rd house in the old days was called the Moon Temple of the Priestesses, so here is where intuitive writing, channeling and divine messages are received, when one develops their spiritual self.
This is a house of the soul’s courage, and is the house of free will. It is also the house of talents, gifts and skills, and movement and dance, and in this case it would be in the water sign of Cancer, which is basically creating things that touch people’s hearts and open their hearts, soften them, expand them. A big part of how the divine may shape through you is through how beautifully you may speak and write – and some people may even feel the divine speaks directly through you.
This gives you immense creativity and talents, and ability to move life itself in the most beautiful ways. Your destiny itself may often shape through all you create, especially with your hands. And as this is a nocturnal chart, your intuitive itself may be especially strong, because the third house also is a house ruling intuition and channeling, and rules the part of night connected to manifestation, and being able to tune into subconscious and even unconscious desires and visions; and then, through effort and skill and perseverance, which is also part of the 3rd house, make it into reality.
Now let’s go back to the beginning,
Arthur Erickson often spoke about the interconnectedness of built structures and the natural environment, emphasizing that architecture should enhance its surroundings and reflect the natural world. Interconnection is a concept spiritually connected people naturally understand, because we see how all really is interconnected, intertwined, and how the other is us, and in each pearl is the reflection of the other and itself also. This is the necklace of Indra, and of life.
Let me share with you a few of his quotes, and we’ll then look into his chart,
“Space has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture. It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us.”
“Life is rich, always changing, always challenging, and we architects have the task of transmitting into wood, concrete, glass and steel, of transforming human aspirations into habitable and meaningful space.”
“The heart, not the head, must be the guide.”
“Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart.”
“It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.”
“The way of architecture is the quiet voice that underlies it and has guided it from the beginning.”
Erickson has a Virgo rising, Gemini Sun and Moon in Scorpio, so the first thing we see is his connection to nature and the earth through his rising, and that the higher purpose of his relationships in this life is sharing sacred work – which is creating and building things for the benefit of others. This is exactly what he was doing, and through his relationship with the man he loved, they also shared their work together and supporting each other in this shared path.
His natal 9th house is in Taurus, and as Erickson is born during the day, actually right around noon, making his Sun shine on his midheaven, this makes his chart a day chart. As a day chart, the triplicity lords of his 9th house become Venus, Moon and Mars. His Venus is in Cancer, his Moon is in Scorpio, and his Mars is with his South Node in Aquarius.
With his Cancerian Venus symbolizing his travels and purpose for expansion, we see how far he travelled in the world, and made many connections, which deepened him in his own wisdom and intuition. He travelled all across Asia, and was also very connected to Indigenous wisdom, which is all symbolized by the sign of Cancer, ruling the land, heritage, lineage of soul, ancestors, spiritual wisdom and heart intuitive connection.
Erickson’s designs overall were known as poetic and elegant, which is deeply connected to this Venus triplicity lord in Cancer; and he was known to be very compassionate as a person, calm and humble despite his successes, and with a calm detached demeanor, and a humorous view of life, often described as having a Buddhist sensibility.
His Moon in Scorpio, another water sign, showed his spiritual expansion moved through quite a bit of transformation and challenges in his personal and intimate life. It also shows his spiritual self probably went quite deep, though he didn’t really share it as openly perhaps, but behind close doors he had deep faith. In the 3rd house, it shows his intuitive connection and why he often just knew exactly what to do and how; he was passionate about his work, and a sense of aliveness moved in his buildings also, which is how he was able to bring the aliveness of nature’s features within the structures and a sense of movement within linearity.
With his Mars in Aquarius conjunct his South Node, he had a certain detached, almost Zen-like sensibility; was definitely a visionary, and his talents in architecture were from his past lives, which also shows his intuitive wisdom and approach when he designed buildings also. The way he would something view or perceive things may have been often through a bit more of a linear way, or even his buildings something seemed a bit more structured, and yet his connection to nature and spiritual nuances moved within what he created.
With a North Node in the 12th house in Leo, in many ways he was here to trust the unknown, the art of surrender, and come into his true self expression, regardless of what others taught or said about him. Embracing his individuality, and not sacrificing his unique voice for corporate pressures or political agendas is what he came here to evolve through. And he did. he never sold out. He followed the beat of his own drum. He faced the uncertainty, the challenges, the aloneness, the need for spiritual strength in the 12th house, and through his craft – he left behind a legacy.
A legacy not just as walls or structures, but as a reminder that within all of this tangible reality, are the movable, non-linear and intangible things. This is what moves us in hearts and spirits, and what we end up remembering. This is what makes something feel like a home, like a space of belonging.
The warmth and love we pour into it. The devotion, the care, the intention. The nature. The alive moving rhythms, sounds of the wild, rivers and birds and wind in the leaves. Sometimes, before starting the design and building of a new project, he’d go to that place and spend time even sleeping on the empty grounds of the yet not built, in order to feel into the space, surrounding and soil, to feel into the movement of the nature around, so that he knows how best to create the building also, in a way that feels more connected, more together, blurring the lines between the outside and the indoors spaces.
And now I’m off to watching a documentary on the famous architect I. M. Pei! Obviously he is brilliant and incredibly talented, but most importantly, he is a beautiful man, humble and humane. And he is also absolutely delightful, inspiring and charming to listen to and learn from, as he shares his perspectives on life, architecture and everything else!
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