The Dark Houses: Astrology’s Bridge Between Shadow Work and Reality Creation

Get ur headlamp babe, we're spelunking up in the natal chart

by Adam Ekberg

I’m hosting a Hidden Houses workshop in a couple of weeks! If you’re into digging into the birth chart to shift your reality — let’s hang!

I have a stellium in my chart that I tried (both unaware of AND armed with astro knowledge) to avoid for a solid chunk of my life.

It’s the Leo of it all (Sun, Mars, Mercury Rx) in my second house of getting that bag 🤑

I was embarrassed by my Leo status, hating what an attention whore she was!

I felt like I could never live up to the diva* status of the lineage of famous and infamous Leos who came before me. (*Diva = someone with talent and high standards.) Heavy is the head that wears the crown or something?

An elder millennial, I also grew up in some toxic ass conditions that made Gillian Flynn’s cool girl critique made me want to sob. Where owning your self-expression, knowing your worth, and doing anything but conform to a very narrow standard almost felt taboo.

The kind of vibe that made sure I kept my head down, stayed humble to the point of self-hatred, and felt painfully awkward because constant self-censorship will do that to a gal.

Think: warped self esteem, desperate for attention, money and worth dysfunction up to my eyeballs, and generally messy antics.

(I could talk about my money issues alllll day, but the TLDR version is: chronic low earning, undervaluing, and being deathly afraid of positioning myself as an authority.)

⏩ Fast forward to a decade of being an astro nerd.

My skittish on-again-off-again relationship to my Leo parts finally clicked¹ when I leaned into them. Stepping into my Leo identity had a ripple effect that I saw echoed in other places in my chart.

It also charged me up with enough confidence to start exploring what other hidden archetypes could be waiting for me to step into.

Those places of the chart (the dark houses) all hold keys to unlock the power of this area of my life I’ve struggled with for forever.

I realized that the second house and its proximity next door to the first house of self and identity makes it hard for the conscious self to easily access it.

Some don’t consider the second house a “dark house” — because it deals in practical and tangible things like money (how we earn and spend it), values, and resources — but it serves as the IRL reflection of the dark houses (6th, 8th, and 12th) of the chart.

The 2nd House is where the material manifestations of the actions and narratives of the dark houses show up.

Sitting at the periphery of the self (the 1st house), we can’t clearly see it (the 2nd house - the house of money, resources, and self-worth) from the vantage point of the 1st house.

What else can’t we see clearly from the 1st house? The 6th, 8th, and 12th. All holding narratives that are harder to pin down.

So if you’ve got money issues (whomst among us?!), we gotta dig into of these hidden houses — to both understand our challenges and flip the script.

What are the dark houses?

The 2nd, 6th, 8th and 12th houses are the dark houses in a chart. Here’s a rundown of the areas of life these houses represent:

2nd House

Your self-worth in action — how you earn and spend money, your resources, values, and manifest based on what you believe you deserve.

6th House

The conditions that keep you well — your work habits, routines, and how you show up in service (to others and yourself).

8th House

The portal of transformation — where shadow work, intimacy, shared resources, and emotional entanglements demand reckoning and offer rebirth.

12th House

The unconscious scripts running the show — dreamspace, exile, and the hidden beliefs shaping your reality from behind the scenes.

Why are they “dark”?

First of all, dark doesn’t mean scary or bad (some of the most powerful people I’ve come across have 8th or 12th House stelliums), but because these houses and the themes therein lie just out of the self’s direct line of sight they can freak us out.

From the 1st house (our identity), we simply can’t see them clearly. But that’s exactly why they hold such transformational potential.

The light of the self doesn’t directly fall on them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work with them. 🔦

Join Hidden Houses: Astro Portals for Reality Creation

Why do they matter?

The 2nd and 6th House are practical, mundane houses in many ways, with much deeper implications. While the 8th and 12th houses (opposite the 2nd and 6th) and the much more about the undercurrents in our lives — not as visible, but inevitably show up in the everyday.

These are the places where our shame and unconscious stories are lodged in there deep. They’re harder to see and separate from other things, and harder to excavate — like cleaning out a crawl space.

I actually don’t wish cleaning out a physical crawl space on anyone, but metaphorically, astrologically, and spiritually? Ya bish, I’m game!

The signs and planets that are in these houses give us a sense of the types of unhelpful stories that we’re contending with and also the gold we can glean from these areas.

So yeah, they’re associated with difficulty, but they also represent opportunities for growth, transformation, and a deeper understanding of yourself and how you operate.

My new favorite visual aid. We’re dealing in bread, yikes, sus and haterz territory, y’all!

How to work with the dark houses

Step 1: Reveal the hidden story

Each dark house holds an unconscious narrative shaping your choices. Start by exploring planets, signs, and aspects in your:

• 2nd House: What do you believe you’re worth? How do you treat money, and how does it treat you?

• 6th House: What habits or routines do you maintain that drain vs. sustain you?

• 8th House: Where do you avoid intimacy, vulnerability, or deeper emotional truths?

• 12th House: What subconscious beliefs or patterns are quietly running the show? How do these beliefs impact and relate to your money and sense of value?

Step 2: Rebuild with intention

Once you have awareness, you can start to shift.

• Redefine your values + worth (2nd) based on who you are now, not who you used to be or think you should be.

• Create new habits (6th) that support the identity you’re stepping into.

• Open to intimacy + trust (8th) by facing fears and rewriting inherited stories.

• Bring unconscious beliefs to light (12th) so they stop driving self-sabotage.

Step 3: Use archetypes to recode identity

Where there's a wounded or sabotaging identity at play, replace it with a more empowered archetype, often the other side of that saboteur archetype:

• From The Scarcity Survivor to The Magnetic Creator (2nd)

• From The Martyr to The Devoted Caretaker (6th)

• From The Avoidant One to The Alchemical Lover (8th)

• From The Delulu Dreamer to The Mystic Visionary (12th)

Step 4: Anchor it in practice

To get different results, we have to take different actions — consistently over time.

• Track your habits and shifts with rituals, journaling, or check-ins.

• Reinforce a new money language: create boundaries and standards for your how you receive and spend, create a sense of safety for yourself

• Bring intimacy into your life through vulnerability and aligned connection.

• Build space for rest, dreams, and integration to rewire your unconscious mind.

To do all of this and more with me and cute cohort, join me for:

Hidden Houses: Astro Portals for Reality Creation

📅 July 9th at 7pm Eastern U.S. / July 10th at 9am Australian Eastern
💻 Live + interactive on Zoom
🎧 Get a bonus mini reading from me
👉 CLICK HERE TO SAVE YOUR SPOT

In this workshop, I’ll walk you through:

• The “dark houses” of astrology — the 2nd (technically not a dark house, but for our purposes it is!), 6th, 8th, and 12th — and why they’re like, so misunderstood (much like me in a way-too-late-in-life rebellious phase.)

  Hint: they’re not actually scary, just deeply personal, often avoided, and wildly transformational when you know how to work with them.

• A look at the invisible energy exchanges happening in your chart around money, work, intimacy, and healing — and how they may be shaping your habits, your bank account, and your burnout (or bliss).

• The axis of opposites — why you might feel stuck in your 2nd house money patterns and how the 8th house can be a portal to intimacy, power, and renewal.

• How your daily routines, habits, and unconscious patterns hold more wisdom than any productivity hack — and how your chart can tell you what you actually need to feel nourished and supported.

• A guided chart reflection to reveal at least one of your biggest hidden stories — and how to reframe it into a source of strength.

• Plus, how to decode planets in these houses as initiations — not curses. Because the “hard” parts of your chart? They’re also where your deepest magic lives.

It’s going to be illuminating, a little spicy, and grounded in real, applicable astrology.
Come learn the stories you didn’t even know you were telling yourself — and how to rewrite them with power.

Register here and join us live!

It’s going to be a whole thing. Bring your chart, your journal, and your inner detective.

🖤 Leah

1. And by clicked I mean I understood my money and self-expression issues sooo much more. I started to actively shift the way I interacted with them — moving from shame to acceptance and from acceptance to straight up hyping.