Where this face sits on the wheel
Hades is the first face of the Quarter of Mutation. Four gates correspond to him:
Gate 1 opens the quarter — it is a gate of the Cross of the Sphinx.
The image
Hades is the god of the underworld, and people feared few as they feared him: no one had as many euphemisms in place of a name. But the essence of this face isn't the underworld itself, it's the threat to the personality: the reminder that between "now" and the end there is only time running out.
Hades was also called the Rich One — because gold and precious stones lie under the earth. Hence one of the face's main themes: the illusion that death can be "bought". People accumulate, donate, build libraries bearing their name so that they'll be remembered for centuries.
Four gates
- 1 — self-expression: the deep creative force with which the quarter begins.
- 14 — wealth and resources: what we fill our "chariot" with.
- 43 — insight, and 34 — power: together they give knowledge as power, and efficiency. "Keep busy, move faster, make everything run smoothly."
Efficiency is a wonderful way not to look into the void. The more interesting the times and the faster the world, the more unnoticed the decades slip by.
How it shows in a chart
If your conscious Sun or Earth is in one of these gates, the themes of mortality, resources and power are present in your life. You may have a great creative charge, know how to accumulate and act very efficiently. The shadow lies in filling with busyness and achievement a void that is really worth simply seeing. Hades rules in the mind: it is the mind that fears death. When the wheel passes to the body — to strategy and authority — fear stops running things.
The same applies, more quietly, to any other Personality activations in these gates. But a single face never describes a whole person: it matters whether these gates are defined, which center they sit in, and what is in the Design. A gate in an open center, for example, gives an unstable theme that doesn't operate all the time.
And one more thing. Wherever we have Personality activations is where the mind most easily hands its power to outside forces — and the Faces of the Gods set the frame for exactly that false authority. Knowing about the faces doesn't free you by itself. What frees you is living by your own strategy and authority: then you can see this force without handing it the wheel.
The crosses of this face
- Sun in gate 1: Right Angle Cross of the Sphinx, Juxtaposition Cross of Self-Expression, Left Angle Cross of Defiance
- Sun in gate 43: Right Angle Cross of Explanation, Juxtaposition Cross of Insight, Left Angle Cross of Dedication
- Sun in gate 14: Right Angle Cross of Contagion, Juxtaposition Cross of Empowering, Left Angle Cross of Uncertainty
- Sun in gate 34: Right Angle Cross of the Sleeping Phoenix, Juxtaposition Cross of Power, Left Angle Cross of Duality
Hades reminds us that there is no time. And that is exactly why each moment lived correctly becomes the only real value.