Getting to Know You

One of my favorite astrologers has a free PDF download on her website that illustrates a bunch of different ideas for mini projects to help take a kind of "inventory" of your life.  These mini projects are based on the astrological house system, which if you are not familiar, are the sections on a persons birth chart that show WHERE the energies of the zodiac signs and all the planets manifest themselves.  Each of the 12 houses represents a specific area of life, such as money management, communication, and relationships, to name only a few.
A good way to choose which house/project will be appropriate for you is to read the definition of each house listed below.  It gives a pretty basic idea of what that house encompasses.  When you run across one that resonates with something you may be having challenges with in your life, take a look at the list below it.  There you will find the mini projects you can do to help bring about more awareness of that challenge and proactively do something to change it, if necessary.

Check out more of Donna Cunningham's amazing insight on her blog:  http://skywriter.wordpress.com/
and her website:  http://www.moonmavenpublications.com/



First House: First impressions and first approach to situations, appearance, image,
self-presentation, the basic physical vehicle. The first house is your personal sunrise—
the way you meet the world—and creates a sense memory of you for everyone you meet.

• Write a story about yourself that begins with “I AM…”
• Pull together a photographic retrospective of yourself over the years to see how your style has changed
• Adapt your appearance to accurately reflect the real you in the here and now
• Be an authentic representative of your Sun
• Do a full body scan for health-related issues
• Tone up—your carriage and your muscles
• Train yourself to walk into a room with confidence
• Make direct eye contact when interacting with others

Second House: Money and ways of earning it, money management and attitudes toward
finance, things valued more than money. A valuable long-term project would be to
create an updated spending plan that works, through the following steps:

• Keep track of everything you spend for one month
• Discover where wasted money goes
• List small luxuries that make you feel rich
• List economies that would make you feel poor
• Based on the collected information, draft a spending plan
• Repeat the list from step one on and keep revising the plan realistically
• Set up a small monthly automatic transfer from checking to savings
• Budget your time to include things you value more than money
• Know that your self-worth is more important than your net worth

Third House: Communication, thinking and learning style, siblings and near relatives, neighbors, basic coursework, commuting.

• Get in touch with people you’ve lost track of, including yourself
• Think about what you’re NOT communicating—starting at home
• Write an actual hard-copy letter to someone you’ve missed
• Phone a long-lost relative or neighbor to catch up on the news
• Go to a bookstore for coffee rather than Starbucks. Browse
• Subscribe to a blog or newsgroup on a topic you want to know more about
• Stretch by putting the Word or Quote of the Day on your startup page
• Cancel or transfer subscriptions to magazines you don’t read any more
• Buy a blank book and keep a journal of 2010—we live in interesting times

Fourth House: Home and home life, roots, family ties, heredity, family influence, the nurturing parent, senior years.

• Get to know your family tree even if it’s your adoptive family
• Plant yourself in a nurturing environment, become self-watering
• Create a sacred space that travels with you
• Make peace with your past
• Feed yourself what you need most
• Become a caregiver to yourself as well as others
• Identify your tribe
• Develop sensitivity for what each person needs to thrive
• Create a recipe for emotional growth—a little more of this, a little less of that

Fifth House: Children, romance, creativity, self-expression, performing, leisure activities,
gambling and other forms of risk-taking.

• Put on your clown shoes and have some fun
• Be a lover not a fighter
• Develop generosity of spirit
• Praise someone who needs it
• Applaud those who deserve it
• Be fearless in an adverse situation
• Tell yourself and others that you love them
• Send someone flowers who won’t expect them
• Give someone or something a chance
• Look for joy everywhere

Sixth House: Work and its meaning, work habits, types of jobs, coworkers and employees,
health and health habits.

• Look at each work task and consider how to do it more effectively
• Read David Allen’s Getting Things Done or his Free Articles
• Listen to coworkers’ or employees’ suggestions and priorities
• Spend quality time offsite with coworkers—a non-working lunch
• Devise time-effective ways of getting regular exercise
• Have an annual physical and actually listen to the recommendations
• Read up on your medications on the web
• Research vitamins, supplements, herbs and natural treatments you need
• Evaluate your diet and make it more nutritious
• Stop gritting your teeth—it’s the Virgo house of your chart!

Seventh House: Partnerships—personal and business, close, committed relationships, types
of people we attract, sharing.

• Keep your promises
• Get a really good mirror ~ a looking glass for inner or outer gazing
• Identify the solid relationships in your life and why they do or don’t work
• Find the romantic you that serves the beloved
• Respect yourself and others
• Look for the lopsided and bring balance to it
• Listen to someone else’s story without judgement
• Choose your battles
• Learn to barter so that everyone wins
• See yourself through the eyes of others
• Commit to something or someone
• Turn your enemies into friends
• Set standards for yourself as a role model and seek them in your partners

Eighth House: Sexuality, money you don’t earn (inheritances, grants, etc), taxes, partner’s resources, birth, death, transformation, healing.

• Reveal a secret that will heal a wound
• Get and keep your insurance papers, deeds, and other important documents in order
• Recycle things you no longer need
• Read the Kama Sutra
• Learn the art of intimacy
• Treat the treasures of others as truly valuable
• Resurrect something that longs to live
• Memorialize someone who has passed away
• Let go of lingering resentments
• Have a release ceremony for something you mourn
• Leave a legacy behind

Ninth House: Higher education, advanced studies, religion and philosophy of life, legal
matters, foreign lands, distance travel. (Course work of one kind or another is common
while this house is emphasized, but focus on learning skills that further your career goals.)

• Take a refresher course to update skills for your work
• Take a month to reread those favorite books on your shelves
• Reread an inspirational or self-help author who helped you in a bad time
• Write to or about a teacher who brought out the best in you
• Do a gratitude list each day for a week, a month, or more
• Pick a spiritual practice and do it daily for a week, a month, or more
• List 10 things you firmly believe—then write why they might not be true
• Attend a service for an unfamiliar religion…or one you no longer belong to
• Watch the travel channel or a travelogue about a land you want to visit
• Learn a foreign cuisine, and read best sellers from that country
• Plan for and make a pilgrimage, if only in your mind

Tenth House: Career and long-term goals, how you are remembered, parental authority,
bosses and the type of boss you are.

• Take an inventory of all the goals you’ve achieved
• Find or be a mentor
• List the qualities and standards that make you feel successful
• Analyze your parents as role models for your career
• Consider if you’ve become like your own parents with your kids
• Take your boss to lunch
• Be a good steward
• Get serious about something
• Establish an inner board of directors to make your decisions
• Lead by example

Eleventh House: Friendship, relationship to peer group, the teenage years, group
membership, social consciousness, activism, aspirations.

• Google college or high school pals to see what they’re up to
• Do something thoroughly adolescent and silly—and revel in it
• Have a long phone chat to catch up with one of your dearest friends
• Instead of a present, give a friend the gift of your skills or presence
• Make amends to an estranged friend that you’ve hurt—expect nothing
• Analyze co-dependent ties for how you’re enabling or being enabled
• Make a new internet buddy through a blog or forum with shared interests
• Analyze your groups to see how they enhance or detract from your goals
• Give back to groups that have helped you—volunteer for something
• Question authority—protest an injustice by taking an action

Twelfth House: Things that are repressed or hidden, self-defeating behavior, chronic illness,
chronic illness and care facilities, selfless service, retreats, spiritual quest.

• Take the phone off the hook for a weekend and contemplate your life
• Go on a spiritual retreat—organized or one you create for yourself
• Meditate daily for a week, however you are most comfortable
• Practice Random Acts of Kindness for a week or month
• Court dreamland revelations by journaling your nightly dreams
• Confess your worst secrets to a trustworthy person—in a confessional, perhaps
• List 10 ways you regularly shoot yourself in the foot and figure out why
• Make it a project to stop at least one of them
• Befriend someone who’s suffering as you once suffered and overcame
• Visit someone in a hospital, prison, nursing home, or homeless shelter