What Is An Astrological House Cusp?

The cusp of a House is the point where it begins. A House ends at the cusp of the following House. In the horoscope chart, the Houses (and the Signs) appear in counter-clockwise order, and Houses are numbered from 1 to 12. The cusp of the First House is always shown at the midpoint on the left side of the chart, similar to where 9 would appear on a clock face. Thus the cusp of the Second House would be where the 8 appears on that clock, the Third House cusp at the 7, and the cusp of the Twelfth House at the 10. The Fourth House cusp is always at the very bottom of the chart, the Tenth House cusp always at the highest point. The cusp of the first Sign (Aries) may begin at any point, because the Houses are fixed and the Signs move in a clockwise direction (but are numbered in a counter-clockwise order).

The horizontal line between the First and Seventh House cusps represents the horizon at the place on Earth where someone was born. Planets located in the first six Houses of a birth chart would not be visible in the sky, since they would be below the horizon line.

What is a CUSP?

A Cusp is the boundary line in space between zodiac Signs. The main reason for the confusion about Cusps is that newspapers and magazines don't have enough space to fully explain how the horoscope columnist determined what "Sign" applies to your particular date of birth. It's a lot simpler to just list twelve date ranges and say that if you were born within one of those ranges you "are" a certain "Sign".

This works fine for most people, except for those who were born on one of those twelve dates in the list, or on the day before or after that date, for the dates are "typical" but not true for some birth dates.