What are the best placements for Moon in the birth chart?

(Cover Pic: Football legend Cristiano Ronaldo has the Moon placed in the 8th house of his birth chart. Resonates completely with his obsessive, competitive behavior that has lead him to become so successful in his chosen career.)

Hari Om!

Great question. The thing though before I proceed to answer this question.. is that you understand when it comes to the Moon and Mercury, there really isn’t a good or bad placement.

Why’s that?

That’s because when it comes to your mind and intellect, there isn’t any ‘standard’ for what ‘type’ of mind or intellect is the best.

• Someone with the Moon in the 8th house can have a somewhat obsessive mind but can be a great problem solver, scientist and researcher.
• When it comes to take it easy and just relaxing however, Scorpio Moon people are generally bad at that. For a Scorpio Moon native usually the idea of living is working themselves to death and then indulging until they pass out. Then wake up the next day and repeat.
  • Bear in mind here indulgence doesn’t always mean drugs, alcohol or food. It can be binge watching a web series or playing squash until you drop.
• Similarly someone with Moon in the 1st house can be a very receptive and sensitive individual but that may play against his or her best interests if they are involved in a field where let’s say they are required to be practical and rational rather than emotional and intuitive.
  • Moon in first house people tend to show compassion even to the people who are threats to their life and peace. Alternatively, they may behave too sensitively and impulsively with people who have their best interests at heart.
    • So there really is no good or bad placement with the Moon but only different flavors.

Now when we talk about Mercury, it’s much the same.

• You can have Mercury in the tenth house and your mind works very practically.

• You automatically think about the practical aspects of everything from finances to friendships and communications (all Mercurial aspects).
• People with Mercury in the 10th house usually are great businesspeople and athletes for the same reason.
• Their intellect evaluates facts, figures and decisions from a very practical perspective.
  • For Mercury in 10th house people, the practicality of information matters more than anything else. You give them stock tips and they will appreciate you for it.
  • You tell them about a coup in Nigeria and the general state of human rights in East Africa and they will look at you as though you stole time from them.
• In the same way, Mercury in the 12th house people are all about abstract concepts, ideas, knowledge and information.
  • For Mercury in 12th house people (Mercury is considered debilitated in the 12th), imaginative ideas that extend beyond the boundaries of the normal world as we know it means a lot more than other things.
  • You talk to them about mundane stuff and they may tolerate you but everything with them leads them back somehow to the abstract: this can be poetry, writing, spirituality or occult knowledge, blogging or the like.

So you see there is actually no good or bad placement with these two entities.

Yes and add the nodes to this list because with the nodes once again, the axis has more to do with your priorities and soul contracts than anything else.

However there are placements where the Moon if placed gives you the best experience in terms of the material plane and how to navigate it and there are placements where the Moon if placed tends to result in a personality that has problems dealing with the world and finding its center.

Here they are:

1 Positive placements:

• Moon does well in the 10th and 5th.

2 Negative placements:

• Moon is a bit out of sorts in the 8th, 12th and 3rd houses.

3 Neutral placements:

• 4th, 2nd, 11th and 6th, 9th

4 Problematic placements:

• 1st and 7th houses

Now, people with these placements are going to want to know the reason for this classification.

Here we go:

‘Positive placements’:

Moon in the 5th and the 10th is a very positive placement because Moon placement in the chart is representative of where your mind is the most at ‘ease’.

• In the 5th it’s a great place to be because firstly, from a ‘tantric’ perspective, the energy is still firmly centered in the third eye ‘chakra’.

• Only that here the ‘yin’ energy takes on a ‘yang’ flavor by virtue of its expression.

The fifth house is an important house since it represents a lot of great things. From good ‘karma’ from previous lifetimes to expression, self improvement, intelligence and self expression, this gives the individual a lot of confidence and comfort in how they take on the ‘process of living’ so to speak.

• The intuition is well applied to all matters of improving one’s life and putting creative ideas into action.

• Also the mind is very confident about how it expresses itself.

In the 10th, the Moon does well again because once more, it is able to readily express its true nature out in the world and put plans into motion.

• It’s a good placement because the intuition and the softer side of the individual’s psyche is being readily applied out in the world and that makes the expression rather grounded and well ‘rooted’.

• The individual can be quite practical and refrain from taking intuitive decisions but when they do, its well channeled into making things happen. All in all this placement provides a good career.

‘Negative placements’:

As I said, I don’t really believe there are negative placements for the Moon but the 8th house and 12th house can give the individual a tendency to overthink and become paranoid sometimes.

• While these placements can certainly be great in terms of providing the individual with a research based mindset that always tries to dig beneath the surface and get to the bottom of things, sometimes these tendencies can get out of hand.

• The mind isn’t an entity that you want to ‘get out of hand’. That’s what we call a malefic placement.

• Now also, in the 12th and 8th, an already internalized energy such as is the Moon which stands for all aspects of our personality that our internal: our thoughts, fears, sense of comfort, nourishment needs etc. becomes further introverted.

• Once again, you need to be able to express these aspects of yourself in healthy ways not hold on so tight that the ones close to you are left clueless about your needs.

What’s wrong with the Moon in the 3rd however you ask?

• Well the 3rd is yet another placement where the mind feels the need to constantly function to be operational. You don’t want that.
• The 3rd house is the house of communication, thoughts, analytics, movement and learning.
  • While the Moon here gives great love for learning, interaction, movement and ‘absorption’ of knowledge and information, this too can get out of hand and with not the most constructive results.

See in the 5th and 10th there is still concrete progress taking place by thoughts, intuition and expression being put into action via creation of some sort.

In the 3rd, these energies can just get too internalized and amplify mental chatter.

‘Neutral placements’:

The 4th and 2nd should ideally be the best placements for the Moon right?

Why?

• Because the 4th corresponds to the natural house of the sign of Cancer and the 2nd the natural house of the sign of Taurus.

• These are respectively the own house and exalted house for Moon placement.

However, there’s an integral aspect of the Moon that cannot be ignored: It’s tendency to ‘fluctuate’.

• The Moon creates many highs and lows because it is forever waxing and waning. This as an aspect as well that needs to be taken into account.
• In the 2nd and 4th therefore, the feeling of stability and security respectively ebb and flow. This isn’t a great influence in terms of the physical realm.
  • You’ll overwork sometimes because you don’t feel stable enough and similar for all matters of conveniences where you just may not feel comfortable despite the best conveniences.

In the 6th it’s actually not a bad placement unlike what one would think.

• The mind is at home when addressing conflicts, difficulties and problems. Very calculative, very grounded and very regular with respect to doing whatever needs to be done.
• However, Moon is after all a soft planet and in the 6th can get quite overwhelmed sometimes and have problems maintaining routines and staying on top of chores.

In the 9th the Moon should actually do well right?

• Forget the fact that the Moon and Jupiter are traditionally considered to be enemies but from a purely house point of view what is wrong here?
• Mind feeling most comfortable in the area of spiritual wisdom, higher knowledge and sharing knowledge with the world is a great placement for most of the time.
• On other times though, the individual may find themselves when the Moon is a waning state, doubting the logic and efficacy of these philosophical and largely theoretical concepts and idea

Similarly Moon in the 11th house is a placement that affects incoming gains, friendships and the attainment of desires in much the same way as it does in the 2nd house.

Plus, the locus of ‘control’ of the Moon is now placed in a house which already has a lot of energy fluctuations associated with it.

Why?

• Because the 11th house is the house of large network circles, parties, social events, friendships and acquaintances.
• There’s a lot of energetic movement in this house and rightly so. Friends, acquaintances, network and social involvement keep fluctuating right?
• They change based on your job, life goals, life circumstances, geographical location et all. They don’t remain ‘constant’ or ‘fixed’.
• Moon placed here can translate into an energy that is quite sensitive to the fluctuations in this area unlike the 10th (‘karma bhava’) where instinct, intuition and an abundance of ‘yin‘ energy translates into positive expression in the form of actual work that is required to be done, thereby stabilizing the Moon’s energy.
• In this house, the native’s state of mind and instincts, intuition, emotions may dictate vital aspects of one’s life such as incoming gains, friendships, contacts and recognition.

‘Problematic placements’:

Why ‘problematic’?

• See in the first the Moon isn’t in a bad place as it is in the house of two friends: Mars because it owns the sign and placement of Aries and Sun because the throne is rightfully his and his point of exaltation.
• However, the Moon is a soft planet and the native may find it tough to ‘exert’ themselves adequately in times that require them to stand up and be a little ‘incisive’ and ‘decisive’.

Sure one thing I want to point here is that the ‘nakshatra’ placement of the Moon is all of these placements will be quite a deciding factor in how the actual effects turn out.

• However, the intrinsic quality of the Moon is that of softness, intuition and receptivity.

• Great qualities but not always the best when you are in a position of leadership and purely rational, practical ‘execution’ of plans and strategies.

Similarly in the 7th the Moon is in an area where an already soft planet is handed the scales to balance out. Obviously, the scales can never be balanced.

That is the essence of the energy of Libra, the natural ruler of the 7th house.

• You attach this energy with the Mind and you create a situation where the mind finds comfort and safety in creating balance.

• Problem is that’s a difficult placement in terms of your mental peace. It’s like the native is always somehow trying to find comfort in creating an illusionary balance that is always almost achieved but never fully arrived at.

So there you go, a brief summary of lunar placements and their merits and demerits all for you to consider yourself.

A couple of things you need to keep in mind however whenever evaluating the placement of Moon in a chart:

1. The Moon chart is a very important aspect of studying how the individual’s mind perceives all the areas of one’s life.
   • So let’s take Moon in fifth house.
     • The 8th house is 4th from the Moon.
     • Hence, the individual may always find some emergency or sudden events/ups and downs taking place in the home/homeland/savings/relationship with mother.
   • Similarly Moon in 10th house natives will have the 3rd house 6th from the Moon.
   • As a result of this there will always likely be a certain combative element in their communications and quite possibly conflicts with peers and/or a line of work that involves a lot of short travels.
2. Nodal conjunctions/aspects and ‘nakshatra‘ placements play a huge role in the actual expression of Moon’s energy in the chart irrespective of where it is placed.
   • It doesn’t matter if the Moon is placed in the 5th or 10th which I said are the stronger placements for it to be, if the Moon is conjunct either of the nodes, there is associated with it a great deal of chaos and transformation.
   • It doesn’t matter similarly, if the Moon is in a difficult placement such as the 6th or the 1st house, if it is in a powerful ‘nakshatra’ that is by nature very beneficial and lucky such as let’s say ‘Uttaraphalguni‘ or ‘Purvashadha‘, the Moon is still quite strong.
     • Similarly, difficult ‘nakshatra‘ placements even in good placements will be difficult to deal with. For example ‘Ardra‘ and ‘Moola‘ will have a great deal of chaos associated with them no matter where the Moon is placed in the chart.

So no Moon placement is ‘perfect’. It’s all quite relative.

Yes but based on my research I can share what I have in terms of Moon placements that give you the most ‘juice’ from your Moon placement.

Obviously, conjunctions, planetary aspects, ‘avasthas’ and ‘nakshatra’ placements will all make a difference to this analysis.

Hope this helps.

Hari Om!

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