Astrology basics · The twelve houses
What the 11th house means: friends, groups and shared causes
The 11th house is the high eastern sky, risen but short of the top, the Sun's position at mid-morning. It governs friends, groups, causes, and the future a person is working toward with others. Aquarius is its natural sign, Uranus its modern planet and Saturn its older one. It is succedent, the house before the last.
- Area of life
- Friends, groups, causes; the future worked toward with others.
- Chart quadrant
- Fourth
- House type
- Succedent
- Sky at birth
- High in the east, still climbing
- Natural sign
- Aquarius
- Natural planet
- Uranus (traditionally Saturn)
- Birth time
- Needed, to the hour
High in the east, mid-morning
A house is the sky over the birthplace cut into twelve, counted round from the east horizon, and the 11th is near the end of the count: risen, on the eastern side, between the 12th at the edge and the 10th at the top. Planets here rose a few hours before the birth and are still climbing. The Sun passes through the 11th in mid-morning, from around two hours after sunrise to around four.
The time of birth settles this house because the spinning Earth carries the twelve houses through a full circle each day. How much sky the 11th gets depends on the system, since each quadrant system divides the stretch between horizon and meridian by its own rule; the house systems compared sets this site's seven side by side. A chart with no hour has no 11th; the page on charts without a birth time explains that case, and why noon stands in.
Friends, groups and the shared future
The 11th house covers friends, groups, causes, and the future a person is working toward with others. The friend of twenty years is here, the club, the union, the committee, the campaign, the shared spreadsheet that plans the trip. Where the 7th is one other person, the 11th is the many, chosen and kept, and the thing they are trying to build together.
Venus and Uranus among friends
Fast planets here show in the company a person keeps. With Venus in the 11th, a person has friends from every job they ever held and introduces them to each other at a long table. Slow planets pick the kind of group. With Uranus in the 11th, a person joins the odd society, leaves the group the moment it has a rule book, and keeps friends in three countries and one commune.
The 5th house, the single performer
Opposite the 11th is the 5th, under the western edge of the sky in the evening. The group is answered by the one at play: pleasure, the thing made for fun, children, the audience. The 11th shares the work; the 5th takes the bow. The committee meeting that ends with a cake has stepped across from the 11th into the 5th.
See The 11th house in your own chartA free birth chart, with the reading, from your date, time and place.
Questions
- What does the 11th house rule?
- Friends, groups and causes, and the future a person works toward with others. Friendship, clubs, movements, networks and shared hopes all belong here.
- Why is the 11th house called the house of hopes and wishes?
- Older texts called it so because it holds the future a person reaches for, and reaches for in company. The hopes here are the ones made with friends and allies, which is why the house covers both the goal and the group.
- How is the 11th house different from the 7th?
- Number and distance. The 7th is one person across the table, committed to or fought with; the 11th is the friends and groups a person stands among, side by side.