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Empty 8th House in Astrology: Meaning & How to Read Yours

An empty 8th House in your natal chart simply implies that you didn’t need any planets there to heal emotional wounds or fully bond with another person. It doesn’t mean you’ll struggle with intimacy or are stuck with your unresolved issues


Want to fully explore your empty 8th House? Read on to find out what an empty 8th could mean for you and ways you can still pull insight from this empty house.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

  • You can still find intimacy even with no planets in this house.
  • The sign on your 8th House cusp and its ruling planet can offer clues.
  • Transiting planets will bring energy to your empty 8th House.
an abandoned cabin near mountains with words that read "your empty 8th house"

What does an empty 8th House in my chart mean?

You will have some empty houses in your natal chart.

Many astrologers read only 10 planets in an astrology reading and there are 12 houses, so empty houses are inevitable.

But, if you notice an empty 8th house in your birth chart, what could you expect? Can you still read an empty house?

What does the Eighth House mean?

One name used for the 8th House is the House of Death. Sounds pretty intimidating! But, don’t let that scare you, this house covers parts of life that deal with transformation, submission, and intimacy.

Few of us get out of childhood completely unscathed and most of us have a bit of baggage that we drag into adulthood.

Your 8th House represents the act of opening up this baggage, taking a hard look at what’s in there, and then healing it.

In this way, “death” in the 8th House symbolizes the transformation and death of old wounds.

The “death” of the 8th House can also refer to submitting completely within an intimate relationship where you open yourself up completely.

What other experience besides an intimate and committed relationship tests your vulnerability to this degree and has more potential to pull up baggage or instinctive behaviors and reflect them back to us?

Another type of “death” covered in the 8th House is the loss of control.

This could be literal death and your thoughts surrounding mortality, of course, but it also details the way in which you let go, rely on your instincts rather than logic, and deal with things in life that you don’t get to govern.

  • Your style of creating intimate bonds
  • “Working on” yourself
  • Death
  • Reaction to thoughts of mortality
  • Transformation and change
  • Healing old wounds
  • Releasing control to outside circumstances

What are empty houses in astrology?

An empty house in astrology simply has no planets in it.

While different astrologers may see things a bit differently, in the school of astrology I study, Evolutionary Astrology, an empty house means that you just didn’t need planets there in order to achieve personal growth or find fulfillment.

If you think of your natal chart as a map that can lead you to your best life, then you shouldn’t view an empty house as a place where you are automatically destined to struggle.

Don’t let that make you think that you will undoubtedly breeze through your empty Eighth House, either, because it isn’t that simple.

There are circumstances when an empty house can play a crucial role in your life.

What if my Eighth House is empty?

If your Eighth House is one of the empty houses in your chart, in order to deal with and transform your old wounds or find total intimacy with a partner, you didn’t have to have planets present in this house.

example natal chart with an empty 8th house
This chart was made using Solar Fire astrology software. Learn more here, including how you can get 15% off!

From the Evolutionary Astrology perspective, everyone is born with the “right” chart, and no chart is “bad,” no matter how many empty houses there are.

With an empty Eighth House, your planets were required elsewhere in your chart to learn what you came into this life to learn.

Of course, your empty Eighth House doesn’t mean you will experience challenges in these areas of life, but it does mean that it is possible to intimately bond with another and heal from past emotional wounds with your planets exactly where they are.

And, luckily, just because there aren’t any planets to read in the empty 8th House, your birth chart still offers you many clues about how you may experience these transformational parts of life.

How do I read my empty 8th House?

A lack of planets in your House of Death doesn’t mean you are left clueless about your 8th House.

Follow the steps below to learn more about how you may experience your empty 8th House.

1. Your Eighth House sign

Open your chart and check to see which sign of the Zodiac the cusp, or boundary line, of your 8th House lands in.

In our example chart below, their 8th House cusp lands in the sign of Aries.

an example chart where the 2nd House cusp is in Aries
Made with Solar Fire software. Learn how to get your discount here!

Your 8th House sign will offer details about the manner in which you may experience this house.

This sign’s predispositions, desires, and traits may offer insight into how you may experience intimacy, deal with your past hurts, or handle life’s transformations.

2. Look up the ruling planet of your Eighth House sign

Gain more information about your empty Eighth House from the planet that rules your 8th House sign.

Every sign has one or two planets that are said to “rule” it, which just means that they are linked or connected.

The table below shows each of the signs and the planet or planets that rule it. Find the planetary ruler of your 8th House sign.

Zodiac Sign of Your Eighth HouseZodiac Sign’s Ruling Planet or Planets
AriesMars
TaurusVenus
GeminiMercury
CancerThe Moon
LeoThe Sun
VirgoChiron (modern), Mercury (traditional)
LibraVenus
ScorpioPluto (modern), Mars (traditional)
SagittariusJupiter
CapricornSaturn
AquariusUranus (modern), Saturn (traditional)
PiscesNeptune (modern), Jupiter (traditional)

3. Locate the planetary ruler of your Eighth House sign

In your natal chart, locate the planetary ruler of your 8th House that you determined in the last step.

The characteristics of the sign that this planetary ruler is found in can be mixed in a bit with the traits of your 8th House sign, adding more dimension to the style in which you may experience your 8th.

Also, the house that this ruling planet sits in and the parts of life described by that house will also be linked to your experiences with your empty 8th House.

Going back to our example chart, their 8th House cusp lies in Aries, and in the table above you could see that Aries’ planetary ruler is Mars.

the example chart showing Mars, the ruler of their 8th house sign, is in Aquarius in the 5th house
Made with Solar Fire software. Learn how to get your discount here!

You can see that their Mars sits in Aquarius in the 5th House, so the characteristics of Aquarius and the parts of life described by the 5th House will help to shape how they express their 8th House.

4. Find Pluto in your chart

Houses have planetary rulers as well, and Pluto is the ruler of the 8th House.

So, another way to pull out more information about your unoccupied 8th House is to look at the placement of Pluto.

Just as you did in the steps above, the sign and house of Pluto can fill in more details when it comes to how you may go through your Eighth House.

the example chart showing that the 8th house ruler, pluto, sits in gemini in the 9th house
Made with Solar Fire software. Learn how to get your discount here!

In our natal chart example, the 8th House ruler, Pluto, is situated in Gemini in their 9th House. This placement will help influence their empty 8th House and add one more layer of complexity.

Will my empty Eighth House always be empty?

Even though your natal chart placements are fixed in time, frozen at the moment of your birth, your empty 8th House will have transiting planets visit from time to time.

In astrology, the planets stuck in time in your birth chart are called your “natal planets”, and the current and continuously moving planets are referred to as the “transiting planets”.

The transiting planets continuously orbit and interact with your natal chart, bringing their influence and energy to each of your houses as they go. Understand more about transiting planets through this article from AstroButterfly.

the example chart with transits showing and the transiting moon in their empty 8th house
Made with Solar Fire software. Learn how to get your discount here!

Visiting our example natal chart one more time, I introduced planets in transit this time. You can see that the transiting Moon is positioned in their otherwise empty Eighth House and introducing its planetary energy to the house, as well.

But, the Moon is a fast mover and it will quickly progress on to their Ninth House, taking its energy and influence with it as it goes.

So, even if there isn’t a planet in sight in your natal 8th House, it still has the potential to be a hotbed of activity when you look at the transiting planets.

Other articles you may enjoy:
Empty 7th House
Empty 9th House

a pinterest pin about an empty eighth house