The author of this article, Dylan Warren-Davis, emigrated
to Australia from Britain more than ten years ago. Dylan has been practising
herbal medicine (naturopathy) since first
qualifying as a prize winning student with the National Institute of Medical
Herbalists (UK) in 1982.
Since completing his herbal training, Dylan
has been involved in further research of his own rediscovering the lost
European metaphysical teachings, upon which Western herbal knowledge is
based. He has been engaged in the commercial production of herbal
tinctures and has been a consultant on the manufacturing of herbal tinctures
to the herbal industry in Britain.
Astrology and Health: an introduction to decumbiture [part 2]
The decumbiture chart is
an event chart of a person becoming ill, consequently its interpretation
is distinctly different from reading a natal chart. The interpretation
of decumbiture specifically focuses on five of the twelve houses, as can
be seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1: The Houses Used in Decumbiture
These houses are:
The first house, which
describes the patient's body, health and vitality.
The sixth house, which
describes the patient's disease.
The seventh house, which
describes the judgement of physician/astrologer.
The eighth house, which reflects the patient's death.
The tenth house, which
describes the medicines needed to help the patient.
The symbolic link between
these houses and the patient with their illness is made through the Zodiac
signs that are found on the house cusps, together with the corresponding
Planetary rulers. This process is called ascribing signification.
For example,
if the sign of Taurus is found at the ascendant (the first house cusp)
then Venus, which rules Taurus, specifically signifies the patient and
their health and vitality in the decumbiture chart. Venus is consequently
described as the significator of the patient. The same technique is repeated
for the sixth, seventh, eighth and tenth houses, to find the significators
for the patient's illness, therapist, death and medicine respectively.
Just as the Moon moves the
waters of the oceans, so symbolically the Moon is seen to powerfully the
influence the flow of vital force through the body. For this reason in
decumbiture the Moon is seen as an additional significator of the patient's
disease, for she reflects the course and unfoldment of the illness.
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