If your Moon is in the 6th house, the Moon had just set when you were born. It had slipped below the western horizon within the last two hours or so. You could not have seen it from the delivery room. The Moon sets about 50 minutes later each day, so the clock time of a 6th house Moon depends on the phase of the Moon on your birthday. Near a full Moon, it means a birth around sunrise or in the two hours after. Near a new Moon, it means a birth in the early evening, just after sunset.
That link has a side effect. US babies are not born evenly around the clock. The busiest hour of the day is 8 a.m., and it falls right where a full or waning Moon sets. So the phase changes the odds of this placement a great deal. We counted it with every US birth hour on record for 2024. This guide gives the clock times, the odds for each phase, and what the old and new books say. The method is at the end, so you can check it.
The Moon had just gone down
Your birth chart is a map of the sky at the minute you were born. Astrologers cut that map into twelve slices called houses. Each house covers one part of life. The 6th house covers daily work, habits, the body’s upkeep, coworkers and small animals. Our guide to 6th house astrology, from Bad Fortune to daily habits sets out the whole room.
The Sun takes the same room every evening, and our guide to the Sun in the 6th house finds it there in the first third of the night.
Now picture how the sky turns. A point of the zodiac rises in the east. It climbs through the 12th, 11th and 10th houses to the top of the sky. It sinks through the 9th, 8th and 7th houses. Then it sets in the west. The point where it sets is called the Descendant, and it opens the 7th house.
A Moon in the 9th house has just passed the top of the sky, and over New York it stands from 17 to 78 degrees high.
Here is the part many guides get wrong. The 6th house is not the last stretch before setting. That stretch is the 7th house, still above the horizon. The 6th house sits just below the western horizon. A Moon in the 6th house has already set. It is the Moon that went down a short while ago. Our guide to the Moon in the seventh house covers the Moon that was about to set.
Mercury obeys the same rule, and our guide to Mercury in the 6th house shows why it lands almost always in the evening.
The 6th house is the mirror of the 1st. The 1st house sits below the eastern horizon, and a Moon there is about to rise. Our guide to the Moon in the 1st house covers that case. One Moon waits to come up. The other has just gone down.
Two ways to draw the 6th house
There are two common ways to cut the sky. They agree on the picture, but not on the edges.
Whole sign houses are the oldest way on record. The sign rising at your birth is your 1st house, and each next sign is the next house. Count the rising sign as one, and the sixth sign along is your 6th house. With Aries rising, the 6th house is Virgo. With Leo rising, it is Capricorn. The Greek writers worked this way, and Chris Brennan sets it out in his book Hellenistic Astrology. Our guide to the whole sign house system walks through it.
Placidus houses cut the sky by time. Most US apps use them. Take any point of the zodiac as it sets in the west. It then spends a set time below the ground before it reaches its lowest point. Placidus splits that time into three equal parts. The first third after setting is the 6th house. In New York, that first third lasts about one and a half to two and a half hours.
So with Placidus, a 6th house Moon set less than about two hours before your birth. With whole signs, the rule is about signs, not hours. The window lasts as long as the right sign is rising, from under an hour to about three hours. We give both systems where it matters.
Which phase goes with which birth hour
The phase of the Moon is the angle between the Moon and the Sun. At new Moon, the Moon sits next to the Sun, so it sets with the Sun at dusk. At full Moon, it sits across the sky from the Sun, so it sets as the Sun rises. The quarters fall in between. At first quarter the Moon sets near midnight. At last quarter it sets near noon.
So each phase has its own birth hour for a 6th house Moon. We took every moment from 1940 to 2030 when the Moon sat in the Placidus 6th house, in 303 places across the United States. Then we noted the phase and the local clock time, with summer time where it applied.
| Phase at birth | When the Moon sets | Most 6th house Moon births, local clock |
|---|---|---|
| New Moon | With the Sun, at dusk | 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. |
| Waxing crescent | Mid evening | 7 p.m. to midnight. |
| First quarter | Around midnight | Midnight to 4 a.m. |
| Waxing gibbous | In the small hours | 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. |
| Full Moon | With sunrise | 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. |
| Waning gibbous | Mid morning | 8 a.m. to noon. |
| Last quarter | Around noon | Noon to 4 p.m. |
| Waning crescent | Mid afternoon | 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. |
The last column holds the shortest span of whole hours that covers 80 percent of cases. The spans are wide because they mix summer and winter, the whole country, and daylight saving time. At each phase, the window moves on by about three hours from the one before.
The rule is easy to use. A full Moon baby with a 6th house Moon was born around breakfast. A new Moon baby was born around dinner. A first quarter baby was born in the small hours. A last quarter baby was born around lunch or in the early afternoon.
6th house Moon times in New York, the next six months
Here are the Placidus windows closest to each main phase, from October 2026 to March 2027. The times are New York clock time. EDT is summer time and EST is winter time. The last column gives the time the Moon sets in New York. Other US cities shift by a few minutes to an hour, so cast your own chart for a firm answer.
| Window date | Phase | Moon in the 6th house, Placidus | Moonset |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 3, 2026 | Last quarter | 2:29 p.m. to 4:04 p.m. EDT | 2:46 p.m. |
| October 10 | New Moon | 6:27 p.m. to 8:39 p.m. EDT | 6:06 p.m. |
| October 19 | First quarter | 12:07 a.m. to 2:36 a.m. EDT | 11:58 p.m. |
| October 26 | Full Moon | 7:46 a.m. to 9:34 a.m. EDT | 7:56 a.m. |
| November 1 | Last quarter | 1:00 p.m. to 2:40 p.m. EST | 1:07 p.m. |
| November 8 | New Moon | 4:27 p.m. to 6:48 p.m. EST | 4:01 p.m. |
| November 16 | First quarter | 10:54 p.m. to 1:16 a.m. EST | 10:52 p.m. |
| November 24 | Full Moon | 6:50 a.m. to 8:29 a.m. EST | 7:05 a.m. |
| December 1 | Last quarter | 12:41 p.m. to 2:36 p.m. EST | 12:30 p.m. |
| December 8 | New Moon | 4:18 p.m. to 6:49 p.m. EST | 3:52 p.m. |
| December 16 | First quarter | 11:47 p.m. to 1:53 a.m. EST | 11:50 p.m. |
| December 24 | Full Moon | 7:52 a.m. to 9:26 a.m. EST | 8:07 a.m. |
| December 30 | Last quarter | 11:38 a.m. to 1:43 p.m. EST | 11:18 a.m. |
| January 7, 2027 | New Moon | 4:43 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. EST | 4:30 p.m. |
| January 16 | First quarter | 12:50 a.m. to 2:40 a.m. EST | 12:59 a.m. |
| January 22 | Full Moon | 7:20 a.m. to 8:58 a.m. EST | 7:26 a.m. |
| January 29 | Last quarter | 11:05 a.m. to 1:26 p.m. EST | 10:36 a.m. |
| February 6 | New Moon | 5:31 p.m. to 7:52 p.m. EST | 5:30 p.m. |
| February 14 | First quarter | 12:56 a.m. to 2:37 a.m. EST | 1:11 a.m. |
| February 20 | Full Moon | 6:31 a.m. to 8:17 a.m. EST | 6:27 a.m. |
| February 28 | Last quarter | 10:53 a.m. to 1:25 p.m. EST | 10:27 a.m. |
| March 7 | New Moon | 5:23 p.m. to 7:35 p.m. EST | 5:25 p.m. |
| March 15 | First quarter | 2:03 a.m. to 3:37 a.m. EDT | 2:21 a.m. |
| March 22 | Full Moon | 7:02 a.m. to 9:04 a.m. EDT | 6:43 a.m. |
| March 29 | Last quarter | 11:21 a.m. to 1:54 p.m. EDT | 11:03 a.m. |
Look down the full Moon rows. Each window opens within about 35 minutes of sunrise, and it closes between 8:15 and 9:35 a.m. On November 24, 2026, the Sun rises at 6:53 a.m. in New York and the full Moon sets at 7:05 a.m. The 6th house window runs from 6:50 to 8:29 a.m.
The window does not open exactly at moonset. The Moon can sit up to five degrees above or below the Sun’s path. That shifts its real setting time by up to about half an hour from the line the chart uses. The chart uses the Moon’s place along the zodiac, not its true height in the sky.
How common is it? One in twelve, until you look at the phase
Over many years, the Moon passes through the 6th house for about one twelfth of every day. So if babies came at the same rate every minute, one chart in twelve would have this Moon. That is 8.33 percent.
We checked this for American births. We took every 10 minutes from 1940 to 2030 and cast a chart for 303 places across the United States, weighted by the number of people who live there. With an even clock, the Moon sat in the 6th house in 8.33 percent of charts with Placidus, and 8.33 percent with whole signs. Our guide to the Moon in the 8th house found the same one in twelve for that house.
But babies do not come at an even pace. The CDC, the US public health agency, puts every birth record into one public file each year. The CDC natality file 2024 holds 3,638,436 births, each with its clock time. The busiest hour is 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., with 6.3 percent of all births. In that hour, 59 percent of babies are born by C-section, and planned C-sections peak right then. A second wave comes around noon, and births started with drugs, called induced labor, fill the afternoon. The quietest stretch runs from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m., at about 3 percent an hour.
We weighted every chart by the real 2024 birth hour, month and day of the week. The total barely moved. It came to 8.34 percent with Placidus and 8.33 percent with whole signs. Each phase takes every hour in turn, so the busy and quiet hours cancel out.
The phase is another story. Split the count by phase, and the hospital clock shows up at once.
| Phase at birth | 6th house Moon, Placidus | 6th house Moon, whole sign |
|---|---|---|
| New Moon | 8.1 percent of births | 7.7 percent of births. |
| Waxing crescent | 7.2 percent of births | 6.8 percent of births. |
| First quarter | 6.4 percent of births | 6.2 percent of births. |
| Waxing gibbous | 6.2 percent of births | 6.7 percent of births. |
| Full Moon | 9.0 percent of births | 10.1 percent of births. |
| Waning gibbous | 10.4 percent of births | 10.5 percent of births. |
| Last quarter | 10.2 percent of births | 9.9 percent of births. |
| Waning crescent | 9.2 percent of births | 8.8 percent of births. |
With an even clock, every row would read 8.3 percent. We checked, and it does, within 0.1 points. With real birth hours, the rows spread far apart.
A baby born near a waning gibbous Moon has 10.4 percent odds of a 6th house Moon with Placidus. That Moon sets in mid morning, so its window runs from about 8 a.m. to noon. Those are the busiest hours on the hospital clock. A baby born near a waxing gibbous Moon has 6.2 percent odds. That Moon sets in the small hours, when few births are planned. The gap is 1.7 to one.
The full Moon sits just behind the leader. Its window starts in the quiet hours before dawn and runs into the 8 a.m. rush of planned C-sections. With whole signs, the full Moon reaches 10.1 percent, close to the top. Put the three phases from full Moon to last quarter together. They cover 37.5 percent of US births, but 44.5 percent of all 6th house Moons.
Compare the 1st house. For the Moon in the 1st house, the best odds go to a waxing crescent or first quarter Moon. For the 6th house, those two phases sit near the bottom, and the waning half of the month takes the lead. The same busy morning hours favor a young Moon about to rise, and a full or waning Moon that has just set.
For the Moon in the 11th house, halfway up the eastern sky, the same morning rush favors the new Moon.
What the Greeks called this place
The Greek astrologers gave each house a name. The 6th was Kakē Tychē, which means Bad Fortune. Vettius Valens, a working astrologer of the second century, gave it illness, injury, slaves and hard labor in his Anthologies. The 12th house, its opposite number across the chart, was Bad Spirit.
Two plain reasons sat behind the harsh name. First, the 6th house is a falling place. The Greeks called it a decline, and Latin writers said cadent, from a word for falling. A planet there has just passed one of the four angles, here the western horizon, and is falling away from it. Second, the 6th house sits 150 degrees from the 1st house. That angle was not one the Greeks counted as a line of sight. So the 6th house cannot see the house that stands for you. Planets there act out of your view.
The Greeks also gave each planet a joy, a house where it was said to rejoice. The list comes from Paulus Alexandrinus and from Firmicus Maternus in his Mathesis. Mercury rejoiced in the 1st house, the Moon in the 3rd, Venus in the 5th and Mars in the 6th. The Sun rejoiced in the 9th, Jupiter in the 11th and Saturn in the 12th. So the 6th house belongs to Mars, not to the Moon. Our guide to Mars in the sixth house covers the planet at home there.
Look at the pattern in that list. The Sun, Jupiter and Saturn, the planets of the day, rejoice above the horizon. The Moon, Venus and Mars, the planets of the night, rejoice below it. The Moon’s own joy, the 3rd house, sits below the horizon on the east side. The 6th house sits below it on the west side. So a 6th house Moon is still on the night side of the chart, the side of her own joy. But she sits in the room of Mars, not in her own.
The old books linked the Moon to the body, and Valens counts the body among the things she signifies. William Lilly, in Christian Astrology in 1647, gave the 6th house sickness, servants and small cattle, and he called it unfortunate. Put the Moon there, and the old writers saw the body’s upkeep as a daily concern. That is the old reading, set down as history.
Here is the line that matters more. A birth chart does not detect, predict or explain illness. Astrology is not a science, and a 6th house Moon says nothing about your health. Nothing on this page is medical advice. For anything about your body, see a doctor.
How this Moon shows up in a life
Here the counting stops and the reading starts. Modern astrologers read the 6th house as the place of daily rhythm, where you tune the machine of daily life. That shift came with the psychological school led by Liz Greene from the 1970s. Stephen Arroyo reads the Moon as the need for comfort and emotional safety. Demetra George and Chris Brennan keep the older, harder meaning in view as well. Put the two together, and you get these themes. They are a starting point, not a verdict.
Routine is comfort. This Moon feels safe when the day has a shape. A set time to wake, a known route to work, the same mug each morning. A broken routine feels like a bad mood, even when nothing else is wrong.
Care comes through doing. People with this Moon show love by fixing, cooking, sorting and helping. They are the coworker who remembers the birthday cake and the friend who shows up with soup. Words of comfort come second.
Work carries feelings. The mood of the office, the tone of a boss and the pace of a shift hit this Moon hard. A kind workplace is worth more to them than a big title. Career and public rank belong to the 10th house. The 6th is about the daily job itself.
The body tracks the mood. Modern writers say this Moon feels stress in sleep, appetite and energy first. That is a reading of temperament, not a health claim. If something feels wrong in your body, the right step is a doctor, not a chart.
Small animals and helpers matter. The old 6th house held servants and small beasts. Today that reads as pets, and as the people you look after or who look after you. Astrologers link this Moon to the calm of a cat or dog at your feet.
The Moon’s house shifts as it moves through the sky. One room down is the 5th house, and our guide to Moon in the 5th house takes this Moon out of the daily grind and into play, romance and what you create.
How to check your own chart
You need three facts: your birth date, your birth time, and your birth town. For this Moon, the time is the key. The Placidus window lasts about two hours. A birth time that is off by an hour can move the Moon into the 7th house or the 5th.
Birth certificates in the United States list the time on the local clock. That includes daylight saving time in summer. The sky follows the Sun, not the clock, so solar time and clock time can differ by an hour or more. A good chart program converts from one to the other for you. Enter the time as it is written on the certificate.
Then use the phase as a quick test. Look up the phase of the Moon on your birthday. If it was a full Moon and you were born at 8 a.m., your Moon very likely sat in the 6th house. If it was a full Moon and you were born at 8 p.m., it did not. At that hour, the full Moon had just come up in the east.
Last, check the house system. Most apps offer both Placidus and whole signs. If both put your Moon in the 6th house, the reading is firm. If only one does, read both houses and see which one sounds more like you.
Questions people ask about the Moon in the 6th house
What does it mean to have the Moon in the 6th house?
It means the Moon had set in the west less than about two hours before you were born. In astrology, it ties your feelings to daily work, routine and care for others. A steady day makes this Moon feel safe.
What time was I born if my Moon is in the 6th house?
It depends on the phase of the Moon. Near a new Moon, it means the early evening. Near a first quarter, it means the small hours after midnight. Near a full Moon, it means around sunrise and just after. Near a last quarter, it means midday and the early afternoon.
How rare is the Moon in the 6th house?
It is not rare. With an even clock, it is one chart in twelve. With real US birth hours from 2024, the total stays at 8.34 percent. The odds do change with the phase, from 6.2 percent near a waxing gibbous Moon to 10.4 percent near a waning gibbous Moon.
Is the 6th house the joy of the Moon?
No. In the Greek list of joys, the 6th house is the joy of Mars. The Moon rejoices in the 3rd house. Both houses sit below the horizon, on the night side of the chart.
Does the Moon in the 6th house mean health problems?
No. The old books tied the 6th house to illness, but that belongs to the history of astrology. Astrology is not a science and cannot forecast your health. For any health question, see a doctor.
How we measured it
We used pyswisseph, a Python version of the Swiss Ephemeris, with its built-in Moshier tables, for the Moon and the Sun. We stepped through time every 10 minutes from 1 January 1940 to 31 December 2030, in Universal Time. For each step we cast charts for 303 population centers that cover the United States, weighted by the 2020 Census.
We wrote our own house formulas. A Moon is in the Placidus 6th house when its point on the zodiac set less than a third of its time below the horizon ago. It is in the whole sign 6th house when its sign is the sixth sign from the rising sign. We tested our Placidus rule on 20,000 random charts against the house function of the Swiss Ephemeris. It agreed on all 20,000. We split the count into eight phases of 45 degrees each.
For real birth hours we used the CDC natality file 2024, from the National Center for Health Statistics. We kept the month, the day of the week and the minute of birth apart. We turned each chart’s time into local clock time, with the daylight saving rules for each year and place.
We checked the result by a second route. We drew 400,000 births at random, with a fixed seed, from the same 2024 birth hours, dates and places. For each one we cast Placidus houses with the house function of the Swiss Ephemeris itself, not our own. The two routes agreed within 0.35 points for every phase, with both house systems. The moonset times come from the Swiss Ephemeris, and we checked them against astronomy-engine, a separate library. The two agreed within one minute. The New York windows come from a scan of the Swiss Ephemeris houses at one minute steps.
Your own Moon, read in full
A phase and a clock time tell you where your Moon sat. They say nothing about its sign, its links to other planets, or the ruler of your 6th house. Those are what turn a sky picture into a reading.
Astrovision builds that reading from your birth date, hour and town. It comes as a written guide and as a personal podcast, with each term explained in plain words. Get your complete natal chart reading.