12th House Profection Year: It's Time to Let Go and Start a New Life

astrology

Apr 30

One of the things I love about the Narrative Astrology Lab is the way that having a bunch of astrologers in one place normalizes talking in the language of astrology and helps us get to the heart of the most important decisions we have to face.

After I posted 5 Lessons From My 12th House Profection Year, a group of us who recently came out of 12th house profection years met on our Discord server to talk about our experience.

Another member of the lab and I both have Leo ascendants, so the moon is the ruler of our 12th houses. She and I both dealt with motherhood themes during our 12th house years. We are the same age, but we were thinking about motherhood from opposite places. She had children young, and she is letting go of motherhood as her children grow up. I have avoided motherhood, and I am only now considering that it might be something I’m capable of.

My relationship with motherhood has a lot to do with my relationship with my moon, the ruler of my 12th house. As an Aquarius moon, I’m used to hearing that I don’t do moon-things right. I don’t get sucked into other people’s emotions, which can make me seem cold during an emotional crisis and is traumatizing for people who need people to flow with their emotional energy in order to feel like their emotions are valid. Because of this, I’ve thought that I’m just not a lunar person, that I’m not nurturing or good at caring for other people emotionally. I defined myself around this trait, avoiding roles and situations that would require me to be nurturing. That included motherhood.

When you have built your identity around a lie, letting go is liberating.

For me, liberation came in the form of building a relationship with someone with the moon in Cancer during my 12th house profection year. I have the moon in the 7th house, and I revel in complementary relationships. He is better at being nurturing than anyone else I know, and I believed at the beginning of our relationship that he would be the emotional intelligence specialist in our relationship. The last thing I expected to learn was that my way of dealing with emotions was actually helpful to him.

He taught me that there are many ways of taking care of people. Flowing with other people’s emotions is only one form of emotional intelligence. The ability to think clearly during an emotional crisis gives me the ability to hold space for people, allowing them to feel what they’re feeling without feeling judged or worrying about what I’m feeling. The aquarian ability to hold space combined with the groundedness that comes from my Taurus sun allows me to support people in an emotional crisis in the way that river banks support a raging river. Other people are able to flow with their feelings while feeling safe and contained. We all have times in our lives when we need someone to hold us while we panic without getting sucked into our panic with us, and that is a place where I shine.

During my 12th house year, I learned that I shouldn’t discount my nurturing skills just because they aren’t like everyone else’s. I might not be the greatest at making soothing there-there sounds, but I have other caretaking skills that I can bring to motherhood, if I ever decide to become a mother.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with this information yet. Stepping into this new identity will be the work of my 1st house profection year, and learning how to develop those skills will be the work of my 2nd and 3rd house profection years.

For now, I feel like a butterfly in my final moments in a cocoon, waiting for the chance to vibe with the new me.

[Edit: My moon in Cancer partner and I had a child during my 2nd house profection year, and I love being a mom. And there-there sounds can totally be learned. (17 April 2023)]