Using this system some houses can be very small and other very large depending on the location on earth that the chart is set for. Each house has a particular meaning. Houses are not the same as signs. They do not describe anything. They are life's experiential fields.
Cycles are the orbits of the planets around the Sun.
Some seem slow others seem fast - this is because of their distance from the Sun. As a planet orbits the Sun, in astrological terms we say it is in 'transit'. A chart is set for the place and time of any event, usually a birth. The chart is like a freeze frame of a moment in time as the planets are captured in their orbit. Aspects are the relationships between planets that are measured by their geometric relationship with each other, in the circle we call the zodiac.