5 Lessons From My 12th House Profection Year

astrology

Apr 28

I am turning 36 next month. For most people, 36 is a fairly minor birthday, but I am not most people. I am an astrologer. For astrologers, 36 is an important year because it marks the end of a 12-cycle and the beginning of a new one.

Namely, my 12th house profection year ends on my 36th birthday, and my 1st house profection year begins.

I am not yet 36 as I write this, but the Scorpio Full Moon marked a major milestone for me: It was the last major lunar event in my 12th house profection year. Since my 12th house is in Cancer, which is ruled by the moon, this means that my 12th house profection year has passed its last major milestone and is, essentially, over.

Most importantly—especially, when talking about things that have to do with the moon—my 12th house profection year feels over. I feel like I have reached the top of a tall mountain, and I am surveying the terrain I’ve traveled.

Since I am in a reflective mood, I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve learned.

1. It’s not just about you. What is happening in the rest of the world matters.

This transit marks my 3rd 12th house profection year. I experienced them when I was 12 and 23.

I haven’t met anyone who has enjoyed a 12th house profection year. (Though, I’m sure they’re out there.) Humans, as a rule, don’t like to feel isolated, even if they like solitude, and the 12th house has the tendency to impose isolation if you aren’t in the mood for solitude.

By far, though, this 12th house profection year was the least lonely for me.

The reason: I went through this 12th house profection year when the whole world was in lock-down.

My particular flavor of Aquarius moon tends to interpret periods of solitude as periods of exile. Even when I choose to be by myself, there is always a part of me that believes I am alone because I am unwanted.

I didn’t socialize any more than I did in previous 12th house profection years, but it was certainly a lot easier to be by myself knowing that I was alone because it was literally against the law to socialize in person.

2. It is amazing the things you can do behind your own back.

I do not have any planets in the 12th house in my natal chart, so the 12th house is unfamiliar territory for me.

I knew going into this year that the 12th house is the “house of self-undoing,” but knowing this didn’t prevent me from working against my own self-interests in a way that was really infuriating. From “forgetting” to put a link in my bio to a new course I was trying to get people signed up for to “accidentally” posting something controversial just before a post inviting people to join my community, this has been the year of getting in my own way.

3. Don’t just focus on the profected house. The ruler and its house are important, as well.

Articles about 12th house profection years tend to focus on 12th house themes—isolation, self-undoing, hidden enemies, addiction, mental health. All of these things were relevant themes for me this year, but the theme that was at the center of my awareness had nothing to do with the 12th house and everything to do with my 12th house ruler, the moon.

This was an important year for my relationships, and my moon is in the 7th house.

In Astrology and the Authentic Self, Demetra George says that the house of the ruler of a house describes the source of the things that happen in a house.

In the case of my 12th house profection year, my partnership relationships either supported or were “hidden enemies” of my ability to work in a healthy way with 12th house themes. In some cases, my partners expressed for me things that I was unable/unwilling to look at for myself, acting out my unconscious shadow or desires.

These relationship themes were compounded by Venus’s transit through the 12th house this year, which felt like it took forever.

**4. Look at all of the significations of the profected sign and its ruler.**

Because I try to use gender-inclusive language, I downplay the association of the moon with mothers and prefer the more inclusive words “care-takers” or “nurturers” instead. Sometimes, I join the band wagon and talk about the moon as the planet of self-care.

These words are more inclusive of nurturing people of all genders, but it’s important not to be so inclusive of people on the margins you exclude people at the center. The moon rules mothers, which means that mothering and mothers are going to be themes in moon times.

I learned this the hard way when I was blindsided by the question that elbowed its way into the center of my life this year: Do I want to be a mother?

5. A 4 degree orb is plenty close enough for a moon/Pluto square.

I have wondered for years if the square between my Pluto and my moon with a 4 degree orb counted as an aspect. Traditional astrologers prefer to disregard aspects to the outer planets unless the aspect is very close (1 degree or less in some cases), so I have hesitated to claim to have a square between Pluto and my moon.

After this moon-ruled profection year, I am absolutely certain there is a square between my Pluto and my moon.

My emotions and how I process them were at the forefront this year—as you would expect from a year ruled by the moon—and everything had a very Plutonian flavor.

I experienced powerful (Pluto) emotions (moon). Mood issues that have been there but not present enough in my life to be dealt with were blasted to the surface like impurities in a crucible, so they could be scraped off. Sometimes the blasting in question involved literal death. I have had to completely transform (Pluto) my relationship with my emotions this year.

Ultimately, that’s what profection years are about, transforming your relationship with the profected house, but my transformations were plutonian in the extreme.