On the Ancient Paradigm of Domicile Lords
© 2011, Nov 4 Curtis Manwaring
The concept of rulership goes all the way back to at least the Hellenistic era. Valens refers to one of these as an "oikodektor" which means "one who give ear to". This is a stewardship situation where a planet is acting either as head of a household (oikodespotes) or as a steward for the true lord (usually the exaltation lord where domicile lord can't do so).
The interesting thing is that the modern concept of "affinity" is not that far removed from the ancient concept of "oikieosis" which means to "appropriate" or to make ones self "familiar" with. From a neo-platonic perspective an appropriation can happen on the noetic level by becoming formally identical (and not materially identical) as Schmidt would say with whatever the mind beholds. So it was theorized that the planets at creation "familiarized" or appropriated certain places for themselves in the cosmos, which is to say that planets in their eidos (forms) took on the images (zoidia). To some degree this happens to the planets in whatever sign they happen to be in, but there are special places that fit more closely to their own natures (perhaps in the material sense, rather than the eidei).
In this way the outer planets potentially have affinity to the images in various ways. It is not just a matter of likeness, but also of contrast. Uranus has a special place in relation to breaking up the "perfection" or completeness of Saturn. In Valens we find that Saturn can mean either high rank and the pinnacle of achievement or the dismantling of things. Symbolically within the circle of rulerships, you have two domiciles of Saturn right next to each other and in the process of going from the lights to Saturn back to the lights again, this break between Solar and Lunar halves of the zodiac happens at 0 Aquarius. The discovery of Uranus also broke this completeness and so it has an affinity to this issue of dismantling, breaking conformity, etc... But I don't use Uranus as "ruler" of Aquarius in the traditional sense (oikodektor) because that would be mixing two diffrerent paradigms. Then there is the innate character of Uranus and how this contrasts to various signs. There seems to be the lowest contrast in Aries where it would be more "camouflaged" in that sign than most others.
To be more thorough, as to how I look at Uranus as a "ruler" of Aquarius, Aquarius shows where something is just past completion. The main choices here are fanfare, accomplishment, dismantling, corruption, breakdown and change (usually it is sudden change because Saturn does not bend, but breaks). So where Uranus/Aquarius is in the chart symbolically shows what is happening to that process in that area of your life, where one makes breakthroughs or where one struggles to hold something together, etc... It is one of the dimensions of Saturn, where if you remember that I said before that Uranus is 3 Saturn cycles (Neptune and Pluto also have assignments traceable to saturnian processes and are also multiples of Saturn cycles due to Bodes law). It is possible to do this for every planet to every sign of the zodiac in the same way that each individual will have a different reaction to staying in each house. A theme will emerge for every single case that can be followed in the same way moderns use asteroids.
I also have another general rule of thumb. The planets inside of Saturn (including Saturn) relate to changes happening more on the material realm and while they also have a spiritual dimension, it is easier to use the visible planets to see visible "concrete" events. The outer planets reside in the invisible realms where spirituality has more potency than matter. Therefore the outers seem to me to represent the "why" question more directly because of their relative "detachment" from our world. The who, what, when and were by contrast are "visible" material concerns.
