Descendant

Origin

The Descendant comes from Hellenistic astrology, where it was called the Setting, dysis in Greek, the place where the Sun crosses below the western horizon at the end of the day. The Greek astrologers classified the Descendant as one of the four angular points of the chart, paired with the Ascendant across the wheel as the place of the other meeting the place of the self. The Descendant was assigned to marriage, partnership, contracts, and open enemies, since all of these involve the I standing face to face with another. Vettius Valens described the Descendant as the place of decline and of relations, both meanings rooted in its position at the western horizon.

In medieval European astrology the Descendant continued as the cusp of the House of Marriage and the House of Open Enemies. William Lilly used the sign on the Descendant to describe the partner sought in marriage and the kind of opposition encountered in lawsuits. With the rise of psychological astrology in the twentieth century, the Descendant came to be read also as the projected self, the qualities you have not yet claimed in your own nature that you encounter through partners and significant others. Liz Greene developed the Descendant as a key tool for understanding the dynamics of projection in relationships, the way the unowned shadow returns through the partner.

Meaning and function

The Descendant describes who you draw. The sign on the Descendant gives the qualities you seek in a partner, often qualities complementary to the Ascendant: Aries Ascendant draws Libra Descendant partners who balance the directness with grace; Taurus Ascendant draws Scorpio Descendant partners who bring depth to the steadiness; Cancer Ascendant draws Capricorn Descendant partners who structure the feeling life; Leo Ascendant draws Aquarius Descendant partners who bring objectivity to the warmth. Each pair reflects the principle that the Descendant carries the qualities you must learn to integrate by encountering them through others.

Planets near the Descendant, especially within ten degrees of it on either side, are called angular and strongly mark your relational life. Sun on the Descendant gives a person whose vitality is found through partnership; Moon on the Descendant gives an emotional life shaped through close relationship; Saturn on the Descendant gives serious committed partners and sometimes delays in marriage; Pluto on the Descendant gives transformative intense relationships. The function of the Descendant is to draw to you what you cannot find alone, to mirror back the parts of yourself you have not yet claimed, and to teach the lessons of completion that only encounter with the other can teach.

In practice

In your natal chart, the Descendant sits on the right horizon at the cusp of the Seventh House. Its sign tells you the kind of partner you naturally seek and the dynamics you encounter in close relationships. The ruler of the Descendant by its placement shows where your relational energy actually goes. House systems differ slightly: Placidus places the Descendant precisely opposite the Ascendant by time, almost always in the opposite sign; Whole Sign uses the entire seventh sign from the rising sign and may sometimes place the Descendant degree inside another house.

Common configurations include planets conjunct the Descendant, which strongly mark the partner; Venus on the Descendant, which gives partners of beauty and ease; Mars on the Descendant, which gives passionate sometimes combative partners; Saturn on the Descendant, which gives mature committed partners and lessons in patience; Neptune on the Descendant, which gives idealised or confused partnerships and the need to see the partner clearly. To work with your Descendant, observe whom you attract repeatedly, what qualities they bring, and consider whether you have claimed those qualities in yourself or whether you are projecting them outward and then complaining that the partner carries them. The work is to take back the projection and integrate the quality.

Symbolic depth

The Descendant is the western horizon, the place of sunset, the daily image of the day giving way to the night. It carries the symbolic weight of every encounter as a small surrender, every relationship as a place where the I gives up some of its sovereignty to receive what only the other can give. In the tarot, the Descendant resonates with The Lovers, card six, the moment of choice that binds two beings together, and with Two of Cups, the formal pledge of love between two equals.

In Vedic astrology the Descendant is the cusp of the seventh house, called Yuvati Bhava or Kalatra Bhava, the house of the spouse, used to describe the qualities of the marriage partner and the dynamics of close partnership. In esoteric astrology the Descendant indicates the soul agreement to be completed by another, the recognition that the I cannot fully know itself without the mirror of the You, and the willingness to do the work of relating that no individual practice can replace. The Descendant asks you to take partnership seriously as a path of awakening, to receive the mirror without flinching, and to claim what the other has been carrying for you. Continue through the glossary.

Also known as

• DC
• Setting Point
• Seventh House Cusp
• Yuvati Bhava cusp
• Western Horizon